Lonely Exile
by Fifth Horseman
Summary: The plight of the Visored necessitated over a hundred years of isolation and looking over their shoulders. Largely due to a certain scowling orange head that all ended. Now one Visored finds that she wants a little something more in her life and the hero of the Winter War has her interest.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** Bleach is owned by Tite Kubo. He created this world, I'm just playing in it.

This story is one of three or four that I started working on shortly after I wrote the first chapter of Unlocked Hearts. I was thinking of doing a whole series of lemons, but that quickly lost its appeal. I can write them, it's just that I hate PWP and if there were to be lemons they were to be much more integral to the plot than that, not the central theme of it.

With that said don't expect lemons here. There might be something, but it won't be as explicit as that.

Now, normally I do not post stories that aren't complete already, even if they are multiple chapters. Posting as the story is still being written is often a reason why stuff never gets completed. Unless you go back and rewrite or re-edit those chapters you can write yourself into a corner you can't get out of. Case in point, I am currently working on an Evangelion story that is now up to 31 chapters and I often have to go back to earlier chapters to adjust something so that it all makes sense.

Also, write a chapter, post a chapter is a method that I find to be too much like writing on a deadline and I cannot do that. Also, I don't plan anything out at all before I write. I get an idea and I go with it, writing everything off the top of my head and I just generally find it easier to complete the fic first before posting.

So in this case I am actually going to try it the other way...mostly because I've been getting pretty itchy to put something out and the monster I have been working on for a long time now STILL isn't done.

I know, I should be working on A Chance Encounter but I haven't had a chance to really figure out yet exactly what I want to do with it going forward. Been too busy grinding through the Eva fic.

The continuation of this fic and A Chance Encounter will get my full attention once the Evangelion fic is finally done and being posted.

So for now here's the first chapter of this one. Please be so kind as to leave a review.

* * *

 ** _Lonely Exile_**

 _ **Chapter 1:**_

The sound of lethally sharp metal slicing through the air ended with the dying shriek of yet another marauding hollow. Lisa Yadomaru wasn't sure why so many were appearing today, it had been so quiet since the end of the war, but she wasn't going to argue with the chance to get a little exercise and get out of the warehouse for a while even if it meant killing hollows rather than nosing through the erotic manga section of her favourite bookstore. Of course someone had to kill them since that idiot Kuramadani was just about as useless as it gets and lazy to boot.

The Visored had been a little restless ever since the end of the war, ever since everyone had healed from their wounds and some of their number had decided to go back to the Soul Society and take up their old roles. She had considered it herself, but as enticing as it sounded to rejoin her Captain and the no longer quite so little Nanao, she just couldn't do it. She had been in exile too long and didn't feel that any version of Central 46, no matter how reformed it might be, could ever be trusted. Besides, Karakura felt too much like home now even if she had spent most of her time here in hiding. Since the war she had spent more time wandering the town than she ever had before, the fear of being hunted down now completely gone, if the possibility of it had ever really been there to begin with.

Truth be told she was bored and more than just a little lonely. Lonely for something a little more than just the simple companionship of her fellow Visored. Erotic manga and self service could only carry a girl so far and she had been riding that train for far too long. That didn't mean however that she was out trolling, far from it and she wasn't about to give it up to just anybody simply because the itch was getting more persistent than what she could scratch on her own. Although, there was a certain orange haired Strawberry walking down the street about a half block away that she admittedly wouldn't mind getting a taste of. She also knew that she wasn't the only one to have those thoughts either. She shook her head in amusement. That boy seemed to be completely oblivious when it came to the opposite sex, almost like he didn't even know they were there and he was as dense at sensing their interest as he had been at sensing reiatsu. Maybe worse.

She had found herself watching the heroic young man for a couple of weeks now. It hadn't really been a conscious decision, she had just happened to see him on the street one day and before she knew it she had started discreetly following him around. Even though she didn't know him well, she knew enough about him and had observed enough in the last couple of weeks to know that he was not the same person he had been before losing his powers. She had known others who had lost their powers, lost contact with the spirits of their zanpakuto, and they had never been the same. They always felt like part of them had been lost.

She sensed a bit of that in him, but mostly he seemed to have become distant from his friends and he hadn't been around Urahara's since shortly after he awoke from the loss of his powers. Nor had he come around the warehouse. She hadn't really expected that he would, but she oddly found that she was a touch disappointed that he hadn't shown up at least once to see how everyone was. On the other hand, she supposed that she couldn't really blame him either considering how much he had gone through in such a short time. He deserved a little peace and normalcy.

He looked much the same today as he had every other day as of late. He wasn't exactly moping, more along the lines of subdued, and that trademark scowl was about the same. But there was a certain amount of…something…a certain spark that was missing from him. Understandable she supposed. For a teenaged kid fighting a war and losing his powers to protect both the worlds of the living and the dead he was actually holding up well. It was a wonder he hadn't become a gibbering wreck after everything he'd gone through, and she suspected that he was hiding most of what he was feeling so he wouldn't alarm those closest to him. That wasn't healthy no matter who you were or how strong you were.

Any further thought was dropped as she felt another hollow arrive nearby. It was just down the street and her eyes widened as she realized that it was headed straight for Ichigo. It would be a hell of an end for someone who had done what he had, to be eaten by a hollow when he couldn't even see them anymore. She poured on the speed, hoping that she could get there before it got to him. It turned out to be a very close race.

She rocketed down on top of the draft horse sized hollow just as it closed to within a few feet of him. Slamming both feet into the top of its head, she drove it to the ground with enough force to shatter the sidewalk, sending dust and bits of concrete flying. To a very surprised Ichigo, who was now sitting on his butt on the sidewalk, she looked like she was standing in mid air a couple of feet off the ground. And he had a perfect view right up her short, schoolgirl skirt.

She smirked as she drew her zanpakuto. "Like the view Berry-tan?" she said borrowing one of Mashiro's nicknames for him. She drove her sword down through the stunned hollow's head, killing it and landing back on the ground as it disintegrated beneath her.

"L-Lisa?" he sputtered. Partly due to the sudden shock of what happened, and partly due to the inadvertent panty shot.

"So, you actually do remember me," she said as she sheathed her zanpakuto. "Been so long since you were last at the warehouse I was sure you had forgotten who I was."

"It's not like I have a reason to train now," he said as he got up. He received a sharp rap on the head with her sheathed sword. "Ow! What the hell was that for?!"

"Idiot," she muttered. "Might be no point in you training, but you could visit once in a while. You're as thick as ever, that hasn't changed I see."

"Hey!" he bristled.

"C'mon," she said cutting him off from any further protest. "I'll walk you home and make sure nothing else tries to eat you on the way." There was a certain amount of innuendo in her smirk which he totally missed of course.

He grumbled something that she didn't hear as he dusted himself off and they started off down the street. He clearly wasn't happy about the escort, and probably even less so that he had just gotten a rude reminder that he was pretty much helpless when it came to hollows. His frumpy mood just wouldn't do.

"You never did answer my question Ichigo," she said after they went a couple of blocks.

"What question?" he asked.

"Did you like the view?"

For a moment she was worried that he might choke to death on his tongue. And the vivid shade of red he turned…strawberry indeed.

* * *

By the time he finally made it through his front door he was ready to have a stroke. His face was beet red and he felt like his head was about to burst into flames. She had teased him mercilessly all the way home about seeing up her skirt, about seeing her panties, asking him what his favourite colour was and that she'd wear it next time instead of plain white. She asked him if he liked stripes or if he was more into sexy, lacy lingerie. He nearly brained himself against a lamp post to make it stop.

He was so distracted by all of it that he very nearly got clocked by his old man, his long honed reflexes being the only thing that saved him. As Goat Chin wailed away while tumbling down the walk, he shut and locked the door on him. Let the crazy loon find another way in.

"Onii-chan," Yuzu called out to him from the kitchen. As usual she was busy preparing the evening meal, a pale yellow apron covering her school uniform. She looked at him and her adoring gaze instantly turned to one of worry. "Are you alright Onii-chan, your face is really red. You're not sick are you?"

"Don't worry Yuzu, I'm fine," he assured her with a soft smile.

"He's just all red faced over the girl that walked him home," Karin chimed in as she sauntered in from the living room, hands shoved in the pockets of her shorts.

"You were with a girl?" Yuzu gasped.

"She was carrying a sword," Karin added seriously. Ever since his powers had gone and hers had begun to increase, she had become even more protective of her big brother, always suspicious of anything and anyone that was connected to the spirit world. Especially if they came anywhere near Ichigo.

Yuzu began to look alarmed. Ever since Ichigo had explained everything to them after Aizen's defeat she had feared that the spirit world would come intruding into his life again and take her brother away from her.

He sighed. He hated to see either of his sisters upset. "It's okay you two. You remember when I told you everything, and I told you about the Visored?"

They nodded. "So she's one of them?" Karin asked.

"Yeah," he confirmed. "That was Lisa. She was out hunting down some hollows and I met her on the way home."

The explanation seemed to satisfy Yuzu who relaxed. "You should have invited her in for dinner," she said as she went back to her work. "There's lots here."

"Maybe next time," he said. Now if only Karin was that easily to put off.

"How close Ichigo?" she asked, her voice low so Yuzu wouldn't hear and her tone indicating she meant business. She had felt the hollow but her power wasn't strong enough yet for her to be able to locate them by that feel. She had been worrying and waiting at the window for him to come home to make sure he was okay.

There was no point in lying to her, she'd just pester him until he told her anyway. "Right in front of me. Lisa killed it." He saw her giving him the once over. "I'm fine," he assured her. "Not a scratch on me."

She seemed to relax a little. "So how did your face get so red?" she asked him. "What was she teasing you about?" She knew her brother well.

"N-nothing important," he sputtered, the colour that had begun to recede now returning to his face.

"The window was open you know," she drawled. "Heard something about you looking at her panties. Spend your free time after school looking up skirts Ichi-nii?" The look on her face was positively evil.

"Wha…I do not! It was an accident."

"Oh Masaki…our wayward boy has become a pervert," Isshin wailed to the poster of his late wife.

"How the hell…when did you get back in here?" Ichigo questioned. "And I'm not a pervert!"

Father and son fought, Karin egged them on, and Yuzu tried to restore order and serve dinner. Just another average, _normal_ evening in the Kurosaki household.

* * *

After dinner Ichigo trudged up the stairs to his room to take care of the little bit of homework that he had. At least with his extracurricular activities of the recent past no longer an issue, his homework load was considerably lighter. Upon entering his room however he was greeted by an unexpected sight. Lisa was laying on his bed, sound asleep.

Her shoes and zanpakuto were put aside neatly under his window and her glasses lay on his desk, so it wasn't like she had just laid back and nodded off, she had intentionally settled in for a nap. He considered throwing something at her, or tipping the bed and dumping her off onto the floor. But, with a sigh he decided to just leave her alone and let her sleep. She had saved him from being hollow chow after all and it's not like he wasn't used to having random females sneak into his room…he had to stop and ponder _that_ thought for a moment and the various interpretations that could go with it…and she wasn't bothering him or doing any harm. Besides, and he had know way to know it, but he would be willing to bet that his bed was likely more comfortable than whatever she had back at the warehouse. A quieter atmosphere too.

He settled in at his desk and got to work, making as little noise as he could. Every once in a while he caught himself looking at her and would have to push his mind back to his homework. It wasn't that he never noticed a woman's looks, or that he never took note of their figure. He certainly did, but his hormones didn't get the better of him like others his own age and he had always had a lot of other things on his mind that were much more front and centre in his life. With that said, he had never really had time to take notice of Lisa before. When he was training with the Visored he had usually been too busy trying not to get killed by Hiyori to take notice of much of anything else no matter what it was.

Now that he had a chance to really look at her, he had to admit that she was really quite pretty. She was laying on her side and turned towards him so he had a good look at her face. It was the first time he had ever seen her without her glasses or the usual serious, if not bored look she usually wore. That in itself had him wondering. She normally was quite serious and her teasing and humour was usually dry and sarcastic and delivered with a deadpan expression. Yet today when she was teasing the hell out of him she had seemed a little less stiff, more outgoing somehow. She had obviously been enjoying herself

She began to stir, rolling off her side and to her back. She stretched her arms above her head causing her already short top to move up her body. In spite of himself he found his eyes glued to the pale skin of her flat abdomen. There was definitely no excess body fat there. And he couldn't help his attention being drawn to her chest when her back arched as she stretched, pushing her breasts more prominently into his view. He hadn't realized she was that well built before.

She pulled her left leg back up toward her, causing her short skirt to pool at her hip and allowing him to see a great deal of her long legs. He gave his head a shake and looked away, hoping that she hadn't caught him looking. He also hoped that he wasn't blushing. He'd never hear the end of it.

"Have a nice nap?" he asked dryly as he made it look like he was immersed in his homework.

"Very nice," she answered evenly. "Have a good look while I was laying here all defenceless?"

He almost choked. "I was not!"

"Then why is your face all red?" she asked him as she sat up and retrieved her glasses. "Or were you just day dreaming about all the different scenarios of coming into your room and finding a beautiful, hot woman in your bed?"

"Pervert," he growled.

"Prude," she countered flatly. "And I don't hear a denial."

"Why are you here anyway?" he asked, reigning in his frustration.

She shrugged. "I felt like sticking around and bugging you for a while."

"Lucky me," he drawled.

"Well you could be," she smirked. "But I doubt you could handle me, you still being a virgin and all."

His pencil snapped against the page he was writing on leaving a big black smear and he nearly choked on his tongue. "What the hell..." he croaked. "Why do you have to say stuff like that?"

"It's true isn't it?" she asked innocently. "Unless...Yoruichi didn't break you in did she?"

Steam was nearly blowing out of his ears. "What the hell...NO, the crazy cat woman didn't break me in!"

"I bet she wishes she had."

Despite his best efforts to form a response, he couldn't. His brain locked up and all he could see was him and Yoruichi in the hot spring in her and Kisuke's old training area in the Seireitei. And instead of sitting next to him in cat form, the sexy dark skinned beauty had straddled his lap and was...

"Ha...you're thinking about it aren't you?" Lisa's amused voice cut in. "And with a hot woman sitting on your bed right next to you too. Lech."

 _'Traitorous brain!'_ he roared to himself. "I am not a lech!" he ground out. "And that's pretty rich coming from someone who looks at porn all day."

She rolled her eyes. "It's not porn, it's erotic manga. There's a difference."

"Keep telling yourself that pervert, " he shot back.

"Keep this up Strawberry and you'll never get laid."

"..."

She turned and faced him, legs hanging over the side of the bed and leaning back on her hands. Which just coincidentally happened to push her breasts out towards him and make them central to his view. "All those women that have been around you all the time and you're still a virgin," she shook her head in mock sadness. "I worry about you Ichigo, I really do."

He quickly averted his eyes from her assets. "Is sex all you think about?"

She smirked. "If you had ever had it, you wouldn't need to ask me that question."

His head drooped forward and he groaned in defeat. _'Every girl I know either tries to beat the crap out of me, or teases me to no end.'_

 _'Poor, clueless Strawberry,'_ she lamented. _'Though, it is kind of cute in a way, but only in small doses. Better ease up on him a little I suppose.'_

"Your sisters are very protective of you," she began, momentarily catching him off guard with the change in subject. "You told them everything?"

Sighing, he leaned back in the chair, swivelling it to face her. "Yeah, I did. Karin already knew a little and would have kept prying into it, and not knowing anything was going to make a nervous wreck out of Yuzu. I felt like I owed it to them. I couldn't lie to them or keep them in the dark anymore. They're probably the biggest reasons why I ever wanted the power I had in the first place." He snorted. "I don't think it made them worry about me any less though. And Goat Chin didn't help much. Told them that he was a shinigami but didn't say much else. Started acting goofy so Karin punted him into the wall and that was the end of it."

"She takes after you by the sound of it," she smirked, alluding to his short temper.

"Not too much I hope," he said sombrely. "She doesn't need to get involved in the same kind of crap I was."

"That's a decision only she can make," she told him. "And if she is like you at all, she'll do it whether you or anyone else likes it or not."

He sighed heavily. "That's what I'm afraid of. I just hope that if she does get involved, she at least gets trained properly and is told how things really are and doesn't get kept in the dark like I seemed to be so often."

"I apologize for the role I and the other Visored played in that Ichigo." Her tone was serious and genuine. "There were things that you weren't told that we knew and we should have told you since no one else did. We consider you to be one of us, even now still, but we failed you in that regard."

He shrugged. "What's done is done, I'm not holding any grudges about it. Even if I knew I doubt I would have done anything differently."

"Hmmm, true," she mused. "You are stubborn and hard headed and don't think before you charge in blindly. Not to mention you were all power and no skill."

"Gee thanks," he deadpanned. He sighed. "But you're right. If my powers ever do come back I plan on doing things differently. I learned the hard, painful way that power and brute force can't always cover a lack of skill."

"Power should be the last resort, not the first," she agreed. "And it should only be used when it is truly needed. That's one of the first lessons you learn at the Academy." She gave him a serious look. "So how have you been coping with the loss of your power?"

"Stopped missing so much school for one thing," he joked. "That's a bonus."

"Well that was worth the sacrifice," she said dryly.

He sighed again. "I did what I had to and now I have a chance to live a normal life."

"And how good does that normal life feel when your friends are afraid to even mention the spirit world around you because they think you'll break, or when they go off to fight hollows?" she asked seriously.

He gave her a scathing look which, like usual, had no effect on her. "I'm fine," he countered testily.

She sighed. "Look Ichigo, I'm not trying to piss you off, but I have seen people before who lost their powers and it was never pretty and none of them were ever alright with it no matter how they lost them. I can tell by what you said earlier that you aren't just hoping your powers come back, you _want_ them back otherwise you wouldn't already have plans in mind for training. I've watched you enough to know that you're miserable without them and the gulf that has developed between you and your friends is as much your doing as it is theirs. And until today you haven't seen or talked to anyone associated with the spirit world since you lost them."

"So what do you want from me?" he demanded. "You want me to say it sucks and that I hate it? Well it does. I can't protect the people I care about anymore, I can't protect my little sisters and it's killing me! I hate seeing my friends going off to fight and not being able to do it in their place or even be at their side. I feel like I've been abandoned by the people I gave up my powers to protect. Is that what you want to hear?!"

"Yes," she answered with such nonchalance that he nearly fell out of his chair. "Because it's the truth and you needed to say it rather than keep it locked up inside your head. It sucks and it hurts and you feel abandoned. You have every right to feel that way and you have every right to say so. Trying to convince yourself and everyone else that everything is just great in your world doesn't do you a bit of good."

"And what good will it do me to go around moping or being angry about it?" he asked tiredly.

She rolled her eyes. "None at all you idiot and I'm not saying you should. What I am saying is that you have to stop denying that it's not a problem because clearly it is. You really should talk to your Dad about it."

"He's an ass," he snorted.

"Yes he is," she agreed. "But he was also a Captain and he was without his powers for several years too. If anyone would know what you're feeling it would be him."

He laughed bitterly. "You know, I hadn't even thought of that."

"Of course not, we've already established that you're dense," she deadpanned, earning a look from him. "It might not even hurt if you talked to your sisters too. You want them kept in the loop and it might help ease their worries if you're open with them."

"I suppose you're right," he sighed. "They're too young to have to be worrying that much about their big brother."

"And you are too young to have gone through what you did," she said. "There isn't a single shinigami that shouldn't be bowing their head in shame for needing you to take care of problems that they should have taken care of themselves. Those of us in exile are little better."

"You and the rest of the Visored were victims yourself," he said. "You guys don't deserve any blame."

"I wouldn't go that far," she cautioned. "We could have and should have done more to help you. It's you that our allegiances lie with Ichigo, not the Soul Society even if Shinji and some of the others have gone back there."

"What?" he started.

"That's right, you don't know. Shinji, Rose, Kensei and Mashiro went back and resumed their positions. It's just me, Hiyori, Love and Hachi here now."

"How come you didn't go back?" he asked.

"Because no matter who sits on Central 46 I will never trust them," she answered darkly. "They blindly sentenced us to death with no thought of helping us at all. We served for decades and they just threw us away. We owe Kisuke, Tessai and Yoruichi more than we could ever repay for what they did for us."

"The more I hear about this Central 46 the less I like them," he said. "I'm glad I don't have to deal with them."

"Don't be naive," she warned. "If you still had your power they would be watching you like a hawk. You have a hollow and you are someone outside of their direct control. You reached a level of power that stopped Aizen, they would definitely see you as a potential threat. Though if they tried they'd be risking a civil war. You would have the support of most of the Captains and Lieutenants."

He blew out a long breath. "There is something seriously messed up with the afterlife."

"Can't argue with that," she agreed. "That's another reason why I'm in no hurry to go back there. Besides, I kind of like this town. At least it's not still stuck in the ancient past." She got up and went to the end of the bed and put her shoes back on. "Thanks for letting me have a nap here."

"Didn't have much choice did I?"

She just smirked at him and disappeared out the window.

He leaned back in the chair and looked at the ceiling. She was right, he should talk to Goat Chin. He had gone years without his powers and would definitely know what he was going through. He might even be able to help him with coping with the aftermath of fighting a war at fifteen. Luckily he had been able to keep the nightmares hidden from his family. At least, he hoped he had, he had woke up screaming more than once. He just hoped that the Goat's recipe for dealing with it all wasn't to act as goofy as he did. He'd almost rather be eaten by a hollow that act as nuts as the old man.

He heard a noise at the window and turned just in time to have something soft and white hit him in the face. Catching it before it fell to the floor he was dumbfounded to see that it was a pair of white, cotton panties.

"Since you enjoyed looking at them so much I thought I'd give them to you as a souvenir," Lisa called to him before disappearing again.

"Freaking pervert!"

* * *

Hope you liked it. Next chapter will come when it comes.

Please leave a review, I would appreciate it.


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer:** Bleach is owned by Tite Kubo. He created this world, I'm just playing in it.

Finally, a second chapter. As I have stated before I am not used to posting chapters while a story is still in progress, seems too much like writing on a deadline and I can't really do that.

It also doesn't help that I've been dropping in and out of a quasi-depressed state (or whatever the hell it has been) for the past three months. It has severely taxed my enthusiasm and my energy. Without it, this chapter may have arrived several weeks earlier.

So, given that, I'm not sure how good this chapter will be. I only seem to just be getting my head right again over the last couple of days...which is how about the last third of this finally got written, so I hope I'm finally getting back to normal or at least close to it.

So, here's hoping that this doesn't suck and that you'll be so kind as to r & r.

 **Lonely Exile**

 _ **Chapter 2:**_

The trip back to the Visored's warehouse was a little breezy but it also appealed somewhat to her slightly perverted side. She wasn't entirely sure why she had tossed her panties at Ichigo, she had done it on the spur of the moment without really thinking and his reaction had been worth it. Still, that wasn't quite her usual style, she was far more like to be snarky and sarcastic in her teasing than to be so openly risque. It was also pretty pushy of her to enter the house through his unlocked window, listen to him interact with his sisters, then take a nap on his bed.

She hadn't actually intended to fall asleep but she had found herself lulled into it by the scent of him that permeated the bed and his lingering reiatsu. While he felt no different to a spiritually aware being than any other human did now, his room and everything in it was soaked in his spirit energy from having been exposed to it for so long. It felt warm, comfortable. _Protective._ Apparently even she was not immune its effects and that was something for her to think about. She wasn't someone who particularly needed to feel warmth and comfort from another and she certainly didn't need to be or feel protected, but something about the feel of his reiatsu almost compelled her to welcome it and the way it felt.

It was strange, she had never reacted to it that way when he came to train with them. Maybe it was because she knew so little about him at the time, and maybe it was because of the nature of the situation, what with the Winter War on the near horizon and everyone feeling the stress of it and the recurrence of old horrors taking their attention from pretty much everything else. Mostly she had dismissed it as the byproduct of someone who couldn't control their power and at least the feel of his reiatsu wasn't harsh or annoying and therefore it wasn't difficult to put up with.

Hell, you could actually feel his reiatsu all over Karakura and she had to admit that when he lost it things just didn't feel right anymore. It took her several days to realize that the feeling that something was out of sorts was because of the absence of his reitasu and it wasn't until tonight that she realized that she had actually been _missing_ it. It must have been a mechanism of her subconscious because consciously she had no idea why she would feel that way.

It had been a long time since she actually _missed_ anything. She had stopped missing her old life in the Soul Society a long time ago. Being violated then cast aside like garbage had pretty quickly killed any desire to go back and resume her old role. Aizen may no longer be a threat, but Central 46 still existed even if it was a different bunch staffing it now. That same arrogance and lack of care for anyone but themselves still existed only now the Old Man was keeping a better eye on them.

It didn't matter to her though, the Old Man would have seen them killed anyway whether the reasons between him and Central were the same or not. There was a reason why many referred to him as Old Man Genocide. It didn't matter that they had been violated against their will with the taint of a hollow, they were corrupted and had to die. Even if the Old Man and Central had never swallowed Aizen's frame job of Kisuke and Tessai, and even if Kisuke could prove to them that he could arrest the hollowfication and save them, the order would have stood anyway.

The others had their reasons for going back and she could respect that, just as they respected hers for not joining them. Karakura was her home now and she was content to stay here and protect it. Especially so when one saw the calibre of shinigami they sent to do the job of looking after it. You would think that an area as rich in spirit energy as Karakura would warrant a better class of shinigami to watch over it. Just more ineptitude from the powers that be as far as she was concerned. It was a rant that Hiyori went on occasionally and she couldn't disagree. But while the little blonde bundle of unstable dynamite would berate the resident soul reaper whenever she saw him, she would just give him an icy look and carry on. Needless to say Hiyori would not be happy when she found out that a hollow had been that close to eating Ichigo and the bum hadn't been around to do his job. He just might end up needing to be evacuated back to the Fourth Division for an extended stay.

Reaching the warehouse she flared her reiatsu and Hachi opened the barrier for her. She could think more about things later but right now she wanted something to eat and a nice hot shower. Or a bath if Hiyori was up for a trip to the local bath house. Getting out of the warehouse was good for Hiyori and she was a little less likely to end up getting herself in trouble if someone was with her and she didn't mind riding shotgun.

"What?!" Hiyori yelled, when she told her what happened. She had been able to delay her until she grabbed a quick bite and they were now walking up the street towards the local bath house. "How the hell close did it get to the stupid Strawberry and where the hell was that doofus that's supposed to be patrolling the town?!"

"Too close and I don't know," she answered. "Likely slacking off as usual. I got to it just in time."

"Damn it," the blonde cursed. "After everything he's done that'd be a hell of a way to go. I'm gonna kill that lazy ass shinigami next time I see him." She took a second to calm down. "So how'd Ichigo take it?"

"I didn't give him much time to think about," she answered. "He got a look up my skirt as I killed the hollow and I teased him about it all the way home."

"That dumb ass was looking up your skirt?!" Hiyori seethed. She gave the shorter girl a look. "Yeah, right. What was I thinking? This is Ichigo, he'd rather poke out his own eyes than go perv and do something like that on purpose."

"He tries to make it look otherwise, but he's not handling it well Hiyori," she said. "He can't protect the people he cares about anymore, especially his sisters and it's tearing him apart. Just as bad, his friends think he'll fall apart if they mention anything about the spirit world and none of his friends from the Soul Society have been here. He hasn't even been to Kisuke's."

"Hasn't come to see us either," Hiyori grumbled.

"We didn't go see him either," Lisa reminded her. "And we weren't under orders from the Old Man to leave him alone."

That deflated the blonde a little. "Yeah, I guess we're guilty too. The whole thing sucks though. After what he did and everything he went through the old bastard just cuts him off like that. It ain't right."

"Neither was getting him involved in the first place," she said. "But I suppose it would have happened anyway. That's what Aizen wanted and he'd make it happen no matter what."

"So they do what they always do and just make the whole freaking situation worse," Hiyori complained. "Got news for em', ain't nobody coming to bail them out of this one. The guy that does that is the one they're shittin' on."

She really couldn't argue with that.

They entered the bathhouse and went to the changing rooms. There were only a couple of other people in there at the moment and it looked like they were about to leave. It wasn't long before the inevitable happened.

"Why the hell aren't you wearing any underwear?!" Hiyori shrieked.

Thankfully she was virtually immune to being embarrassed so Hiyori's outburst didn't faze her. The two other occupants of the room, a couple of middle aged women, gave her a disapproving look and one of them looked like she was about to say something. She simply stared them both down like she would have stared down an uncooperative squad member back when she was a Lieutenant. She could generate a rather intense and intimidating stare and it didn't take long for the two women, both now rather pale, to hurry on their way.

"I left them at Ichigo's place."

"...WHAT!?"

It was all she could do to not start laughing. Hiyori's eyes were wide and every inch of exposed skin not covered by the bra and panties she had yet to shed was as red as the tracksuit she always wore. She wondered how much she should milk this...she could really get the small girl wound up, but she didn't want them to get kicked out and she really didn't want to carry the blonde home if she overheated in the bath from all the teasing.

* * *

As he walked through the town on a sunny Saturday morning Ichigo's mind was still coming to grips with recent events. The hollow nearly getting him a couple of days earlier was a big part of it although the real trauma from that didn't hit until later. Lisa's teasing had kept his mind occupied enough that he didn't really start dwelling on it right away but when he did he had a brief but intense bout of fear and anger. His hands had shook but he wasn't sure if it was due to rage or a sense of helplessness. All in all it only served to convince him to follow Lisa's advice and talk to his father.

Surprisingly, Goat Chin took it seriously and actually listened. He had said that the way he had coped with the loss of his powers and the lost, helpless feeling he got from it was to keep himself busy. Besides his relationship with Masaki he had immersed himself in getting up to speed on how to live in the human world. He studied hard and went to school and became a doctor. He began to raise a family. Through it all he rarely had time to think too much about what he no longer had and he was happy with what he did have. Sure, he would have liked to have had access to his power to be able to better protect his family, but using that power to save the life of the woman he came to love so much was a trade off he would never regret.

His own situation was different. He didn't have a wife to be or any kind of significant other and didn't need to learn about a whole new way of life, and he didn't have university studies to immerse himself in. It was going to be a little more difficult for him to find something to occupy him enough to keep him from dwelling on the situation so much. What it boiled down to was he was going to have to find a way to simply accept reality and not allow its truth to drag him down and break him. He needed to be stronger mentally than that, maybe even stronger than he was when he had his powers. Of course when he had his powers he was so busy lurching from crisis to crisis that the Soul Society didn't seem to be able to handle on their own that he'd had precious little time to dwell on it or suffer too much from it.

Of course that was no longer the case and the effects of everything he'd seen and done was catching up to him bit by bit. He was doing his best not to let it overtake him but it was hard some days to keep it together and the isolation he was feeling since losing his powers wasn't helping him any. Then there was the other part of the equation that had is mind working overtime right now, the truth about his mother and how she had met Goat Chin.

He found himself in a familiar place, one that he always seemed to find himself in when he wandered with a troubled mind, the spot along the riverbank where he lost his mother. It was the site of his worst memories but it was also a place where he somehow felt closer to her than anywhere else, more so even than at the cemetery. Despite the pain it evoked it was a place where he found that he could think and work his way through things that threatened to make a mess out of his head and his head was nothing if not a mess right now.

School, his part time job, and his temporary alliances with the school's sports teams ate up a fair bit of time but didn't exactly keep his mind so occupied that he wasn't still dwelling on things too much. He supposed he could further busy himself with taking some extra classes online but even if it kept his mind occupied it wasn't going to do anything for the physical restlessness he was also experiencing. He had gotten used to his heavy, rugged training and the fighting and he was just as much at loose ends physically as he was mentally.

It wasn't just the issue over the loss of his powers however that had him rattled, but the other information his father had told to both him and his sisters. The story of how he met their mother. The _whole_ story. It was an enormous shock and it had turned his entire world and his sense of self upside down. He felt like he should have been flying into a rage and going off like a stick of dynamite at some of what he had learned, but he found that he was feeling more numb that anything else.

"Looking a little lost there berry boy," Lisa's voice came from his right. He looked over his shoulder to see her standing a few paces behind him up the hill.

"Just got a lot on my mind," he answered.

"You must," she said as she sat down next to him. "You didn't even scowl when I called you berry boy."

He rolled his eyes. "I'll try to do better next time."

"So what's on your mind?" she asked.

"I talked to Goat Chin," he said.

"And?" she was pretty sure that she already knew where this was going.

"He said that his relationship with my mother, settling into a new life here, learning to be a doctor and raising a family was more than enough to fill the void of not having his powers," he explained quietly. "He still missed them but because of all of that it was easier than he thought it would be to get along without them." He paused for a moment and she let him gather his thoughts. "He also told me how he lost his powers in the first place, how he met my Mom."

"That idiot," she scoffed. "All the time that he's had to do that and he picks now when you're trying to deal with this."

"Figures that you'd know about it," he scoffed with no real heat behind it. More of a sense of resignation if anything. "When it comes to where my life and the spirit world meet I always seem to be the last to know anything."

"We were in hiding," she reminded him. "Our lives depended upon knowing about any and all beings connected to the spiritual world that may have been in or near Karakura. We couldn't even go out and kill hollows until somewhat recently for fear that our presence would be noticed by either a shinigami or the sensors in the Twelfth Division. Even if the squads weren't sending anyone to find and kill us, that didn't mean that Central 46 hadn't sent their own."

"Sorry," he apologized. "I should have thought about that."

"Don't be so hard on yourself berry, you're not wrong after all," she said, dismissing his worry. "Besides, like I told you the other day, I'm just as responsible as a lot of other people for not filling you in on things that you should have known." She regarded him a little more closely and sighed. "He told you all about the Quincy and about your Zanpakuto too didn't he?"

He let out a long breath. "Yeah. I was so stunned by it all that I couldn't even get mad. Good thing I didn't because I would have just scared the hell out of Yuzu and Karin. They were freaked out enough already."

"He told them too?!" she asked sharply.

"Just about Mom and the basics about a Quincy," he responded. "He didn't tell them about the Quincy Emperor or my Zanpakuto." He sighed. "I feel so freaking stupid you know? I was told how a shinigami gets their Zanpakuto but I never put two and two together when it came to how I had one. After Dad filled me in I began thinking about everything that has been said and done between me and my spirits. I wanted to be angry and accuse them of lying to me but I realized that they never did. I don't fully understand what Old Man Zangetsu's reasons were for everything that he did, but I know he never lied to me and always helped me. Even my hollow despite all of the crap that kept coming out of his mouth was never trying to actually take over. He was protecting me too and just wanted me to get stronger." He picked up a loose stone and angrily hurled it at the river. "I suddenly realized the truth that I should have been able to see all along if I had just stopped acting like a dick and thought about things along the way. The three of us were all one, and now they aren't here anymore."

"Remember what Kisuke told you," she reminded him. "The possibility exists that you could regain your powers someday."

"How likely is that though?" he huffed.

She regarded him with a raised eyebrow. "After all of the supposedly impossible things you've pulled off, you're doubting this?" She bopped him on the head with her sheathed sword. "You really are an idiot. I should drag you back to the warehouse and let Hiyori beat some sense into you."

He paled. "That hurt bad enough when I _had_ my powers. She doesn't know the meaning of the word restraint."

"Keep moping around and you'll find out how little that has changed," she threatened with a smirk.

"Geez, why are nearly all of the women I know all so violent?" he wondered.

"Maybe you're just a masochist," she deadpanned.

He snorted. "I may be a glutton for punishment but that doesn't mean I enjoy it."

"So you say," she cracked. "Yet you seem to respond best when someone is kicking your ass, and on many occasions that person just happens to be female."

He sighed. "Guess I can't deny that. It's the truth, but that still doesn't mean I enjoyed the pain. It was the cost of trying to get powerful enough fast enough to make a difference."

"A shrink might tell you that you were using it to punish yourself," she said. She didn't need to tell him for what and he was well aware of it because he had thought of it himself often enough.

"Who knows, maybe I was," he admitted. "Even with what I just learned about my Mom and her having her abilities taken away from her by the Quincy Emperor the night she died, it doesn't make me feel any less responsible."

"Him taking her powers would have killed her anyway Ichigo, whether she encountered that hollow or not," she reminded him. "And even if you hadn't fallen for the Hollow's lure, do you think it would have just let the two of you walk by unharmed? Even you know it would have sensed that you both had more spiritual energy than just a normal human and it would not have left either of you alone."

"I know," he sighed. "I know. But it's not something I can just change my thinking on just like that. I've blamed myself ever since it happened and I probably always will to some degree."

"I can understand that," she conceded. "But at least stop paying the debt for her death with your blood and put that debt on the Quincy Emperor's head where it belongs."

"No guarantees," he smirked. "But it's not like I can really do that right now anyway with no powers anymore."

"Says who?" she countered. "I already reminded you what Kisuke said about the possibility of getting your powers back but I guess it didn't seep through the cement between your ears."

He rolled his eyes at the insult. "Yeah, yeah, I haven't forgotten."

She pressed on. "And you yourself said the other day that in that case you would want to have the proper skills to go with the power this time around."

"Yeah, and I also remember being told somewhere along the way that training my physical body also helps the strength and endurance of my soul form," he said, rather proud of himself.

"Good for you," she drawled unimpressed, smirking as she made him scowl. "Did you know that doing that kind of training can also help with regaining your power?"

"What? How?"

"Spiritual beings automatically utilize their spirit energy to enhance their strength and endurance," she began. "You already know that you were far stronger physically and had more endurance in spirit form than in your physical body and you didn't have to try, it just came to you naturally." He nodded. "Just like with any other skill or attribute it becomes stronger by using it and training it. It will grow and become stronger."

"Okay, I get that," he said. "But how does that apply when you've lost your spiritual energy?"

"You haven't lost yours, you've expended it to a near critical degree," she corrected. "So much so that you now feel like any other normal person to the spiritually aware. If you had lost all of your spirit energy you would be dead. Kisuke could explain it better but essentially because you had higher than normal human levels before, it is possible to recover it over time. Think of it as having had a significant illness that robbed you of nearly all of your strength. You will recover that strength but it takes time, maybe a long time but you can recover it."

"And training to use my sword properly can help that?" he asked.

"It can," she answered. "Even with your hack and slash, overpower everyone style, it is something you've done before that drew on your spirit energy as you fought, sparred, and trained. It will be almost like retraining a muscle after an injury...think of it as spiritual physical therapy. There's a more technical explanation but I thought I'd dumb it down for you."

"Gee, thanks," he drawled.

"Besides," she continued. "You've already figured out the value of being more skilled. Even the Head Captain on the rare occasions where he is forced to fight never releases his Zanpakuto unless feels that he needs to. The other Captains, especially the senior ones like Unohana, Kyoraku, and Ukitake are the same. When you trained and fought with us it was the same."

He thought about that for a moment. "Yeah, I guess you're right. I can't really remember any of you using your shikai or even your mask unless you needed it. I guess even if training to properly use a sword doesn't help get my powers back a little quicker, it will improve my skills."

"Improve?" she smirked. "More like give you some skill since you have none."

"Hey, I did pretty well as it was," he protested.

"You call getting carved up on a regular basis doing pretty well?" she snorted. "You really are a masochist. It's not all offence, there is something called _defence_ after all."

"Yeah yeah, I get it," he groused. "I suppose I could get started by taking the Kendo club up on their offer."

"That won't help you much," she said. "They aren't going to teach you the basics from the ground up, they'd be looking for someone to fight in their tournaments, especially at this point in your school year. If you want to do it right you need to start at the beginning, learning the proper way to hold and swing the sword and the proper footwork." She levelled a glare at him. "Swinging it like a baseball bat and swinging one handed is not going to cut it. Basics and fundamentals are something you are sorely lacking and you need to master those first."

"Okay, so if I don't go to the Kendo club where am I going to find someone to teach me?" he asked.

She rolled her eyes. "I'll teach you. I'm certainly qualified, especially since I was Captain Kyoraku's Lieutenant. You have to know how to handle a sword if you spar regularly with someone who dual wields."

Allowing that to sink in stopped any ill advised comments that may have tried to escape his mouth. Besides, he had seen her fight and trained against her a bit, she knew what the hell she was doing and was damn good at it.

"Alright. If you're willing to teach then I'm willing to learn." The more he thought about it the more he felt that this just might be the sort of thing he needed to if not fill what felt like an ever widening hole within himself, at least it might stop it from getting worse.

"Good, maybe we'll be able to make a competent swordsman out of you yet," she cracked. "Maybe."

"Great, lessons, _and_ sarcasm," he groused. "Just don't expect me to call you Sensei."

"I'll settle for your cries for mercy," she said as she stood. "Come on, you can buy me lunch and we'll work out a schedule."

He was about to protest but thought better of it. She didn't have to volunteer to train him and buying her lunch was the least that he could do in return.

"By the way," she said as they started walking. "They're blue today."

"What?"

"My panties," she said in her usual flat tone. "They're blue. Did you want to check?"

"No I don't want to check!" he exclaimed. "What's wrong with you?"

"I should be asking you that," she deadpanned. "A boy your age turning down a look up a girl's skirt...there's something unnatural about that Berry-boy."

He just groaned. _'What have I gotten myself into this time?'_

* * *

A few hours later as she made her way home, she found herself thinking about her own behaviour again. Offering support for someone wasn't something she did very easily. Sure, like all of the Visored, they had needed to be there for each other over the years but it didn't necessarily come naturally or easily for her. She wasn't unsympathetic, although it may look like she was, but she did believe that everyone needed to have a certain amount of backbone, an ability to tough things out without being coddled or having their hand held. If you couldn't face adversity or tough times and stand up on your own then how were you going to survive?

Having others to lean on for support was nice but ultimately you needed to be able to stand up for yourself, by yourself and make your way forward. Just as the others did she believed that Ichigo was one of them and she had seen him doing just that. But he had reached the point where he had gone as far as he could on his own without a little support and there was no reason why she couldn't give him some. They all, exiles and non exiles alike owed him more than they could ever repay. Not only had he fought their battles for them, he did so with almost no training and no information to work with. He did it all on sheer determination, conviction, and raw, untamed power.

And he had paid for it and still was and in ways that he either wouldn't admit to or wouldn't recognize for what they were. His reward? Being abandoned by the Soul Society in the name of allowing him to live a normal, human life. But how was he supposed to do that after having done what he had done and after gaining the power he had gained? Even then it wasn't so much about the power as what it allowed him to do and the fact that he was now missing a part of himself, his inner spirits.

Hell, they were _all_ guilty of abandoning him really. The Soul Society, those of them who had been in exile, even his own father who had waited for Ichigo to come to him at her suggestion rather than sitting his son down and talking to him after he lost his powers. None of them had given him enough support or information befor and none of them had done a damn thing for him afterwards. Frankly, it pissed her off and she was just as angry with herself as she was with everyone else for it.

The Visored and the others at Urahara's should have known better than this. The Visored knew what it felt like to be abandoned and it had only been Kisuke, Tessai, and Yoruichi who had given a damn about them. Yet, they all left Ichigo alone as if that was the best thing for him. She couldn't help but wonder if part of it wasn't because they had helped put the kid through hell in the first place that they had convinced themselves in their guilt that leaving him be was the right thing to do.

She was finding that she couldn't do that anymore. Seeing him nearly get attacked by that hollow a few days earlier had hit her harder than she originally thought and it had made her realize just exactly what kind of a situation he was in. Hearing the worry in his sister's voices that night as she listened in after getting into his room had made her see things much more clearly. They were the biggest reasons why he had pursued so much power and had gone through so much and they in turn wanted to help and protect their big brother. It was almost unfathomable but the only ones who seemed to be looking at the situation the right way and actually trying to do something for him were those two young girls.

Put all of this together and perhaps that was part of the reason why she had started to involve herself with him. She had never been one to be the friendly ear to someone in need or offer much in the way of advice, yet she had done just that for him. She didn't even give much thought usually to her own emotional state and chose to keep things mostly bottled up and to herself. She hadn't always been that way, sure she had never been the most open person but she hadn't been this closed. Funny how being violated and betrayed and thrown to the wolves could do that to you.

However, there was something about Ichigo Kurosaki that seemed to move people towards change. He had hit the afterlife like a force of nature, turned the establishment on its head and turned numerous adversaries and enemies into friends or at least into people that were forced to grudgingly respect him. He had given the Visored another member and someone they were more than willing to stand behind and gave them a chance to gain a measure of revenge for what had been done to them. Hell, just being there to see Shinji tell the Old Man that they weren't there for Soul Society, that they were there for Ichigo had been pretty satisfying all on its own.

Somehow the turning point for her had been when she saw Ichigo on the street a few weeks ago and it struck her how un-Ichigo like he seemed. Understandable of course after what he had lost, but for some reason it struck her fairly hard and she began following him. The more she watched, the angrier she got about his situation. The reaction from the Soul Society wasn't unexpected. After all, what he could he do for them now without his powers and without them he was no longer a headache for them. It also angered her to see how his friends were acting around him. They should have been supporting him, not treating him like he was going to shatter like fragile glass if they mentioned anything about the spirit world around him.

He wasn't guiltless of course, but what was he supposed to do? It was in his nature to want to look after his own well being and he didn't want to put them on the spot or feel like he was imposing on them either. There was no manual to consult to tell him how to get through this. She seldom ever openly showed compassion for anyone, but he had somehow managed to evoke it from her. The final component however was something she could no longer deny to herself without sounding like a fool.

She found him to be attractive, appealing even. It wasn't the whole 'white knight' thing he had going, that really did little for her. It seemed over the top but she knew he was serious about protecting others and certainly that wasn't a bad thing. It was the reason that many, including herself, chose to be shinigami in the first place. He was genuine and not some egotistical, hormone driven power seeker. He was someone who was worth knowing and getting to know, someone worth being near.

Truthfully, she was lonely. It had been so long since she had had someone meaningful in her life to be intimately close to. Even when she was back in Soul Society relationships hadn't been an easy thing given her rank and how...eccentric...most shinigami could be. Even with as cynical and frosty as she could seem to be, something which only got worse after their hollowfication and subsequent betrayal, there was still a need for some level of closeness or intimacy with someone and it had been well over a century since she had last known such a thing.

She didn't want to think that her current thoughts about Ichigo were simply borne out of desperation, he didn't deserve that and she would never lower herself to taking advantage of someone that way. She supposed that the only thing she could do was just go with it and see where it went. Whether it be playful banter or serious talk they had been getting along well thus far and it hadn't even seemed all that strange, as sudden as it had come about. If nothing else it would be nice to have someone else to interact with for a change, but if something else were to come out of it, well, she certainly wouldn't object but she wasn't going to push him. Time would tell.

She smirked as she neared the warehouse. Hiyori's reaction should be interesting when she told her that she was going to teach Ichigo how to properly wield a sword, the little demon would probably want to know if she had lost her mind and would want to tag along just to antagonize the berry and give him the gears. Although, she gave the girl credit, they'd had a perfectly serious discussion about Ichigo and his situation at the bathhouse and she might just be interested in hearing if this was something that was actually going to help him. Hiyori would never show it but she actually did give a damn. She'd just be sure to keep her personal feelings to herself until she saw where this all led, if it led anywhere.

* * *

Hope you liked it. As before, next chapter will come when it comes.

Please leave a review, I would appreciate it.

Hopefully I'm off to start the next chapter of A Chance Encounter. Barring that, I have a few other things simmering on the back burner.

(Could use a few more reviews and comments to A Chance Encounter to help me bend it into shape)


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer:** Bleach is owned by Tite Kubo. He created this world, I'm just playing in it.

For reasons that are unknown to me, every word I've written for this story beyond the first chapter has been a long and excruciating process. I honestly can't explain why working on this has been like using a cheese grater on my brain.

Part of it is likely because I was stupid enough to change my methods and be posting chapter while I'm still writing it, doubly stupid since I'm doing that with two stories at once. Part of it may just be the story itself but I think the largest percentage of it has been my state of mind which has been a tattered mess for most of this year.

Oh well, at least the chapter is done and I think I am going to stick with this one until it is done before I go back to anything else. I know this will disappoint readers waiting for the next chapter of A Chance Encounter but believe me, both that story and this one will be all the better if I just concentrate on this for now and get it done.

It may only take another chapter or two to finish this one anyway, can't say for sure since I never plan these things out. But between the difficulties I have already had with it and my desire to get it done I think I can expedite things a bit. Despite my never planning anything out I didn't envision this being a very long story anyway so it shouldn't be a problem and I think it will still convey what I want it to.

Enough of my rambling, here's Chapter 3, Enjoy and please leave a review if you would be so kind.

 **Lonely Exile**

 _ **Chapter 3:**_

Ichigo groaned as he flopped back onto the soft grass of the park, his body thankful that today's training session was finally over. As it turned out this had been exactly the thing he had needed and there was a ...rightness to it that he could feel in his bones. He was enjoying learning how to properly wield a blade and Lisa was a very good and very thorough teacher. There was no life or death learning here though, that would have been a recipe for disaster in his powerless human body.

She took the time to teach him the correct way to hold the sword and the proper footwork. He was learning proper defensive techniques and she taught him that not every blow had to be fatal, that wearing down your opponent with your stamina and with the infliction of lesser wounds were just as valuable. He had earned a myriad of bumps and bruises from her bokken by way of correcting his form or illustrating her point on why he should do something a certain way. Individual style was one thing, but he had to learn the basics first before he tried to incorporate his own additions.

"Graceless as ever," Lisa snarked. "But at least you did make it through the cool down exercises before you collapsed."

"Yeah, yeah," he said as he waved a hand dismissively. "So why the aggressive approach today. Did I do something to piss you off?"

"No," she answered as she stepped up to his prone form, her bokken resting across her shoulder. "Just thought I'd give you the equivalent of a pop quiz to see how well you could put into practice the things I've been teaching you for the past month."

"And?" he asked, rolling his eyes.

"You've done remarkably well," she admitted. "Better than a lot of the recruits I used to get for my squad from the Shinoreijutsuin."

"Do you miss it?" he asked after a moment. She didn't answer right away and the slight frown on her face had him about to apologize for sticking his nose where it didn't belong. When she sat down next to him he sat up.

"Overall, no," she answered. "There are a few things that I do miss, but far more that I don't. I could go a few more centuries without ever setting foot there again."

"How many others did Aizen do that too?" he asked quietly.

"Hundreds, thousands," she shrugged. "No one really knows but the numbers were large enough that the disappearances of souls was noticeable. We happened to be the only ones to survive where others apparently died almost immediately. If not for Kisuke and Tessai we might not have even lasted long enough for Central to sentence us to death. And thanks to Yoruichi we all managed to escape."

"The more I hear about this Central 46 the less I like them," he said.

"Good, because they can't be trusted," she cautioned. "No one even knows if the way they operate is truly by the Soul King's order or if they just do what they want. He appoints them but who knows if he pays any attention to them beyond that."

They remained quiet for a few minutes before Ichigo spoke again. "How did you all manage? I mean, you all had Hollows and you had to come to a new world."

"It definitely wasn't easy," she answered with a frown. "Kisuke, Tessai, and Yoruichi made sure that we remained unseen and kept us from disrupting the world around us until we could defeat and control our Hollows. We spent years fighting through anger and despair and dealing with the spectre of being violated in just about the worst way possible. It was our common tragedy and our burning hatred and desire to kill Aizen that helped us keep it together. I don't know if any of us can say that we have ever healed from the trauma of what was done to us or if we've just learned how to lock it away in a little box somewhere deep in our souls where it will never be seen again."

"I'm sorry," he apologized. "I guess it was pretty rude of me to ask." He hadn't really considered how traumatic or how awful the situation had been for them and he really felt like an ass for bringing it up. He really should have known better especially when he recalled how much desperation and despair he felt when he was first dealing with his Hollow.

"Don't worry about it," she said. "Actually, I'm surprised that you hadn't asked before. I expected you to back when you were training with us."

He shrugged "Given my own situation I guess I had more sense back then than to be insensitive enough to ask."

"Well, tact never has been one of your strong points," she drawled. "But you're forgiven."

He rolled his eyes. "Well at the risk of continuing to be tactless, I gotta ask...why the school girl uniform?"

She smirked at him. "For one thing, I think it's cute. You're probably thinking it has something to do with my choice of reading material since the school girl look is a popular fetish genre...and you may be at least partly right there." Her grin widened. "Plus, how bad ass is a school girl carrying a sword? If Mashiro can go with the whole Tokusatsu superhero look, why not a school girl with a sword? It's a classic."

"Seriously?" he drawled.

"The first one may be the higher percentage...but the second isn't far behind."

"Of course not," he deadpanned.

"The real truth?" she said, looking sombre now. "One of the last times I went through any real angst about what had been done to me, I would spend time sitting on top of a building near one of the high schools watching people go about their lives and I would see all of these girls going back and forth in their uniforms. They knew nothing about Shinigami or traitors, or having your soul violated and infected with a Hollow. They didn't know about having everything you knew taken away from you and having your world literally turned inside out. Right then I would have given anything to have all of my memories erased and just be one of them. No real worries, spending time with friends...seeing how much you could make that uniform challenge the dress code like they all were. Normal things. No monsters, no death sentence hanging over me, no constantly looking over my shoulder hoping there wasn't an assassin lurking there to take my head or stab me in the back. I just wanted to live life like they were." She snapped out of the dour mood. "Since I couldn't do that I did the next best thing, I went and got a uniform. I couldn't be who they were, I can only be who I am and wearing this helps to remind me that I'm stronger than I was then and that I will make sure that I always am."

"Well, for what it's worth you wear it well."

The moment he said it his mind screamed _'Why?!'_ Just what the hell was he doing? Sure, he had long ago acknowledged that she was attractive and if he were to be brutally honest with himself he knew that he was feeling some kind of attraction towards her. He didn't really know why and he hadn't bothered to explore those thoughts any further, figuring that it was just some passing notion he was feeling since they had been spending a lot of time together. He didn't say things like that to anybody so why her and why now?

"Hmm, so Berry-tan are you finally starting to notice the opposite sex or does the school girl thing just hit your perv spot?" The usual flat, deadpan delivery did nothing to show the actual curiosity she was feeling. Since this was Ichigo she knew that he wasn't just perving on the look. He'd gouge his eyes out before he'd leer or perv out about something. Cripes, a month of teasing and he still turned red if she so much as threatened to flash him her panties again. Was he beginning to show some actual interest?

She hoped that was the case as her interest in him had been growing as they spent more time together, convincing her that it hadn't just been some temporary notion going through her mind in the midst of a bout of loneliness. Truthfully, she wanted something to happen and at times she wanted to push the issue a bit but she didn't want to scare him off. She knew that her usually stern looking demeanour and blunt words were off putting to many, though Ichigo seemed immune to it. With him it had more to do with him and the main reason why he always seemed to remain at a certain distance from members of the opposite sex that had an interest in him.

As a nine year old child the love of his life, of course, was his Mother. Losing her and blaming himself for the loss had damaged his ability to let anyone truly get close to him and thus far no one really had. He may not even consciously realize that he was keeping people at a distance, and while some of his best friends were actually female, it was unclear how far any of his thoughts went beyond just that friendship with them. She had to wonder what made her think that she might fare any better than anyone else had. Maybe it was just the desperation of loneliness influencing her thinking.

"It's not like I've seen you wearing anything else," he countered, knowing just how lame and weak it sounded.

"True," she agreed. It struck her then more so than it ever had before that she didn't _have_ anything else. How pathetic was that? "But I'll still take the compliment." As offhand and obscure as his compliment was, when was the last time she got a sincere compliment of any kind from someone about how she looked?

"Thanks for training me by the way," he said in an attempt to get himself out of the awkward spot he had created for himself. "This was exactly what I needed. And...I guess I needed to be around someone that knows the spirit world and who doesn't treat me like I'm going to fall apart because I can't see spirits anymore."

"You're welcome," she said. "Truthfully, this has been good for me as well. It's the first time that I've honestly felt like I was free in a very long time."

"I guess being in hiding you really couldn't go out and interact with the world a whole lot," he surmised.

"We got out more than you might think," she offered. "Once we stabilized and began to learn how to utilize the new power we had, we started getting out a bit. You've seen how we all act so you have some idea what it was like for us to get stir crazy."

He shuddered. "I can only imagine."

"Staying hidden all the time wasn't going to be possible and we did want to keep up with what was going on in the world around us," she continued. "Kisuke kept us informed about any shinigami that came to town and we took every measure we could to watch out for them ourselves and keep them from sensing us. We rarely ever went anywhere alone and didn't stay out for long. We also stuck to some of the shadier parts of town where people are less likely to notice you or care about who you are. We were taking a big risk but it was better than staying hidden behind a barrier and never leaving our hole."

"At least you are finally free now," he said with a slight smile. That little smile faded when he saw the slight scowl on her face.

"It tastes a little bitter though," she said. "And not just because of what Central did rather than helping us after Aizen was done with us. It's entirely possible that they never even actually sent anyone to hunt us down.

We all have a theory that once we left the Soul Society they figured that we had either died or turned completely into Hollows and ended up in Hueco Mundo. Shinji's trying to look into it now that he's back there but that's what we all think he will find." The look on her face became one of outright disgust. "We spent over a century hiding in fear and paranoia, looking over our shoulders with every breath we took and it cost us. We may be free now but that isn't going to fix the damage and the toll it took."

"I'm sorry," he said sincerely. He didn't know what else to say. What could he say? He was a little shocked actually because this was the most emotion he had ever seen from her or heard in her voice. It was obvious that what had been done to her and the other Visored was a deep wound than even now had not fully healed and might never do so. How could it?

"Nothing for you to be sorry about Ichigo," she assured him, her tone returning to normal. "If not for you we wouldn't have our freedom back." She cocked her head at him slightly. "You know, you're a tricky one Strawberry. Somehow you got me to vent all of that without even trying. What's next? You going to charm me out of my clothes and have your way with me right here in the park?"

His eyes bulged, his face lit up like a neon sign, and he spit and sputtered, words coming out in broken gibberish as he vehemently and indignantly defended himself against such an accusation. A few seconds later her demeanour unexpectedly broke and she found herself sprawled on the grass laughing her head off. Her facade rarely ever broke, the mask of seriousness almost never left her face for any reason no matter what she was feeling.

She could tease and flirt like she had been with him and like she always used to with her Captain, and she could bring herself to the ragged edge like she had with the things she had told Ichigo about her past. All the while the look on her face and the inflection of her voice rarely ever changed no matter what her emotions were. With what she had told him she had brought herself much closer to that ragged edge than she had been in a long, long time and her teasing words to him had been meant to bring her back from that edge. His reaction though had tipped her over the edge in the opposite direction.

She wasn't one to ever cry when things reached a point like that and on the exceedingly rare occasions where she ever did, no one else ever saw it. She made damn sure of that. She knew that holding ones emotions in wasn't good and the unspoken way of coping among the Visored had always been to let it out through the aggression of their training sessions. None of them ever held back and it had always helped to take the raw edges off. Hiyori was always willing but with the time she had been spending around Ichigo lately they hadn't sparred a lot. And considering just how much she had been willing to open up around him and speak of her past...and that was another surprising issue all on its own...she should have seen a breaking point coming.

Fortunately that break had found its release point in riotous laughter to Ichigo's priceless reaction to her teasing. And it felt so damn good, like a great reservoir of stress had broken through the dam and was draining away in a flash flood. The more she laughed, the funnier his reaction got as he looked both puzzled and comically indignant. She didn't care right now if she looked and was acting like someone else had taken over her body. She didn't care if she looked ridiculous. She didn't care if he was getting a good look at her as both her skirt and short top rode up as she rolled around and writhed through the wave of blissful and cathartic hysteria. Hell, it only made the look on his face that much funnier. At any moment she expected a fountain of blood to shoot from his nose and send him rocketing across the park.

Eventually the fit ceased and she just lay there, a little dishevelled and the usual serious look hadn't quite returned to her face yet. She felt...good. A little drained, but good.

"All good now?" Ichigo asked dryly, trying to cover the fact that he was having a hard time keeping his eyes off of the display before him.

"You have no idea," she breathed. "I don't remember the last time I let go like that. Thanks."

He raised an eyebrow. "Glad to help...I guess?"

"Give yourself a little credit Strawberry," she urged. "You listened and that's more than most would do. I might even thank you by _letting you_ have your way with me."

Hmm, that was new. She was sure she heard something like a release of steam and a popping sound, and he seemed to have passed out while sitting upright. Poor guy, he _really_ needed to loosen up.

* * *

It was a couple of days later and she realized that she may have pushed him beyond his threshold. Generally, he was never really talkative but was even less so than he had been. The other indicator was in the way that he looked at her when he thought she didn't notice, and the way he didn't when she did. She figured that he was likely wrestling with the thought of just how serious she had been with what she had said. It probably wouldn't do him any good to know that if he hadn't blown a fuse and blanked out and had shown some interest in taking her up on it, that she just might have drug him off into the bushes then and there.

As it was, her long standing loneliness and desire for some physical companionship combined with how she felt when she made that statement had given her a mighty itch to scratch once she got home and into the shower. No matter how good that felt it couldn't match the spectre of what her imagination had conjured up in the process.

So, what to do? Keep pushing, back off, play it down the middle and see which way things tilted? The last two could see things end up stuck in neutral and never moving in any direction while the first option bore the most risk. If anything was to happen between them she didn't want it to be one sided or based solely on her needs. He didn't deserve to be caught up in a selfish, one sided relationship no matter what form it took. She really did want him to be happy and have a sense of peace and belonging. They had been getting along well, talking to each other about things that they likely wouldn't have and thus far hadn't with anyone else. That was a good base to have for anything that potentially might happen between them, or at least she hoped it was. Her willingness for something to happen had connected with her desire and need and was challenging her ability to let him come around on his own. A serious push just might be the only way to move things along because letting things just sit and go nowhere wouldn't do either of them any good. Well, tonight there just might be a chance to fix that.

They had snuck into the school to train in the facilities of the Kendo club, something they had done before when the weather looked like it wasn't going to allow them to train outside. Ichigo had been rather unenthusiastic about it at first but it hadn't taken long for him to finally just shrug and go with it. They weren't doing any harm and when they finally left the stuffy training hall the pool wasn't too far away. Sitting on the edge with your feet dangling in the cool water was a nice way to relax afterwards.

When they exited the still and too warm air of the training hall, they were met with more of the same outside. The rain that was expected earlier hadn't materialized and it was a warm and increasingly muggy night with no breeze. Reaching the pool they began removing their shoes and socks. Ichigo still seemed to be unable to look at her.

"You're never exactly a chatterbox Ichigo," she began. "But I'm beginning to feel insulted by this level of quiet."

His posture stiffened with a jerk but he still didn't turn to face her. "Sorry, I've just had something on my mind."

"Gee I couldn't tell." Her tone translated to _'well duh!'_ "And apparently that something also makes it nearly impossible for you to look at me too. Did what I said the other day really rattle you that much?" Might as well throw it out there and see if it stuck.

He spun around fast enough to nearly give himself whiplash. The sudden inability to speak left him with his mouth hanging open and his face quickly turned scarlet. Not only had she removed her shoes and socks, but her top and her skirt as well and she was in the process of removing her bra.

"W-what the hell are you doing!" he blurted out as he turned back around just as quickly.

"I want to go for a swim and I can't very well do that in my clothes now can I?" she snarked. "Stop being so dramatic, it's not like you haven't seen a naked woman before." He flinched when her discarded panties made contact with the back of his head. "Or did you think I don't know what Yoruichi did? We do talk."

"A little warning would have been nice!" he insisted.

"Why? You'd act like this either way so what's the difference?" she countered. "Besides, you haven't answered my question."

"How am I supposed to answer that...and while you're freaking naked?!"

"Answer honestly and stop making excuses," she shot back, a bit of frustrated anger beginning to creep into her voice and getting his attention. "Did what I say get to you or not?"

"Yes, it did alright!" he shot back. "You're always teasing me so how the hell would I know if you're serious or not?"

"Judging by the way you keep looking at me when you don't think I can see it I'd say you're hoping that I am serious," she countered.

"W-what?" he sputtered. "I don't..."

"Oh stop it already," she growled. "You're so damn afraid of letting someone get really close to you that

you act like you don't see what's going on around you. You've done it for so long and with such conviction that you've convinced yourself that you really are oblivious to the interest any girl shows in you, like you don't even notice them." She glowered at him. "And that hurts them worse than if you just flat out told them you weren't interested."

He was stunned into silence. Not because what she said was a sudden and new revelation to him, but because it wasn't and hearing her say it had made the truth of it sink all the way into his mind where it had only skimmed the surface before. Until now its presence had been known but barely acknowledged and certainly not to its full extent.

On some level he knew that he had been keeping people from being able to have a relationship with him that went any deeper than just friendship. It wasn't that he wanted to be alone, it wasn't a conscious decision that he had made, but everything he did and every sputtering excuse that stumbled out of his mouth led to that state and that outcome. But it wasn't until she said it that it occurred to him that he might be hurting others by doing that. He thought that the only one he was doing any harm to was himself and he could handle that. Hurting someone else...not so much..

"Have I been hurting you?" he asked quietly. He was unsure if he was asking the right question or not, he was still confused and unclear about her intentions and her feelings. He was afraid that he was assuming too much or that his own growing interest in her was skewing his thinking.

"You're not hurting me because I understand why you do it," she answered. "For me it's frustration more than anything." The look on his face told her that he still wasn't quite getting it, or at the least he wasn't believing what it implied.

She sighed and felt like she was deflating. _'Well, I'm already naked, might as well bare the soul a little too.'_ "Imagine if you can," she started. "Spending better than a century without being able to have a close relationship with anyone. Without having a _physical_ relationship with anyone, unable to feel the touch of someone you care about. You're terrified that you will lose yourself to your hollow and that you will be unable to stop it from hurting others. You live in isolation so no one can find you, only able to venture out on rare occasions where you see a world that is already virtually alien to you changing and progressing and all of the people in it going about their lives while you remain on the outside of it all and unable to be part of it."

"You grow hungry for interaction with others that you know you can't have. Even among your own comrades you grow lonely but you know that if you took the chance and met someone and built a relationship that the danger was always there that one day Central's assassins would find you and kill not just you but anyone you were with. You fear that your hollow will take over and you will have to watch helplessly as it guides your hands to kill your friend or lover. Over time, you begin to lose the ability to feel almost anything other than the anger and hatred over what first Aizen and then Central did to you."

"You begin to forget what positive emotions feel like while you become intimately familiar with that anger and hatred and the thirst for revenge and justice for what was done to you. You find yourself drowning in a sea of despair and cold loneliness and it takes everything you have to not completely lose yourself and the sense of who you are. You end up numb to the world around you."

"Then you came along and shook things up. You were like us and you were ready to take the fight to Aizen where we had just sat around and wallowed in our misery and did nothing. You defeated him and it gave us back our freedom. Honestly, I didn't know what to hell to do with it. I started to spend more time out of the warehouse and figured I might as well patrol the town while I was at it. It gave me time to think and the emotions I had lost touch with slowly began to wake back up. At the same time I would see you out and around and I could see that you were headed in the opposite direction."

"You looked like you were starting to shut down like I had and I didn't want to see that happen to you. My loneliness and reemerging desires made me start to see you differently than I had before. I began to _really_ see you for who you were and I realized that I did indeed like you and was attracted to you."

His eyes widened at the admission and he was practically gaping like a fish.

"But with your own issues...and the fact that you really can be dense when it comes to the opposite sex," that got a bit of a scowl in response. "I felt like I was banging my head off the wall because you didn't seem to be noticing anything. I know some of that is on me as well considering how long it has been since I even tried to get close to someone, thus the frustration. That's why I said what I did and that's why I'm standing in front of you naked right now. I wouldn't be letting you see me like this if I wasn't interested." She smirked. "Or if I didn't want you to take advantage of it but that's probably asking too much of you."

She thought he was going to choke on his tongue, or maybe catch on fire given how red he just went. It took a moment but he did manage to compose himself. Even if his eyes did wander much to his scowling consternation.

"I'm sorry that you had to live like that," he began. "And I'm sorry about how I've acted. You're right. I think I've known, at least for a while about what I was doing but I couldn't really admit to it. Stupidly though I really didn't realize that I was hurting anyone...I never wanted to do that. Ever since my Mom died it's been really hard to let anyone other than my sisters be that close to my heart and I was...am...scared to death of losing anyone close to me like that again."

"It's understandable," she said gently. "You were only nine, at that age the greatest love in your life was your mother. There's no way that wouldn't have a profound effect on you."

"Other's shouldn't have had to suffer for it though," he said. "Unfortunately I guess there isn't a lot I can do now to fix that."

"Unless you start a harem as an apology," she deadpanned. The delivery was as important as the timing and the timing had him face palming and nearly falling into the pool.

"I'm having enough trouble with one let alone a harem," he sighed.

"Believe me, it would work, but you're right," she agreed. "You're already having enough trouble as is." She looked into his eyes. "So...are you interested in me Ichigo? At least answer that much for me so I know where I stand."

In her eyes he saw...something, something that he hadn't seen before. He didn't really know how to describe it but he knew it was significant. Expectation? Hope? He could even see what he thought was a hint of the loneliness she had spoken of. He wasn't a stranger to the feeling and he could only imagine...well, no he couldn't really...what it must have been like for her given what she had told him. Truth be told he was getting tired of his own loneliness and keeping others at a distance. What good had that done him? All it had done was develop and build an ache inside of his soul that he had gotten so used to that he had barely been able to recognize it for what it truly was. In those moments where he had recognized it he just buried it and hid it away again. Maybe it was time to stop doing that and try something else.

"Yeah, I am interested in you Lisa," he admitted, feeling like a ton of bricks had just slid off his back.

She took and deep breath and closed her eyes for a moment, letting it out slowly before reopening them. A warm shimmer seemed to radiate from the centre of her being, leaving her feeling a number of things that she hadn't felt for what seemed like forever.

She smiled lightly. "I'll try and take it easy on you Strawberry, but no guarantees. It's been a long, _long_ time but I'll try not to jump you at the first opportunity."

He blanched slightly. No, he hadn't missed the part of her explanation where it had been better than a century since she had been in a physical relationship. He'd also be lying if he said he didn't want to know what the physical part of a relationship was like and that he was scared to death to find out. No doubt a number of his male acquaintances would be mortified to hear that but he didn't care.

"I appreciate that," he said, rubbing the back of his head and hoping that he hadn't heard his voice go up a little. "I've never been in a relationship so it's not like I have any idea what I'm doing."

"What we've been doing is a good start," she said. "Spending time together, talking and getting to know each other. Let the rest come naturally. You might be surprised." She took her glasses off and set them on one of the starter blocks at the end of the pool. "Now, I've been standing here naked all this time and giving you a free show, I think it's about time you returned the favour." She smirked. "Fair is fair."

He turned scarlet and lost the ability to speak. He wanted to try and make excuses but no sound would leave his mouth as it opened and closed uselessly.

She set her hands on her hips and continued to smirk at him. "You know, I've already seen nearly all of you anyway considering the beatings you used to take from Hiyori and how torn up your clothes would get."

"And if I remember correctly the last few times she called me a pervert and accused me of flashing her," he drawled, rolling his eyes.

She waved her hand dismissively. "I think she actually likes you. She was embarrassed but she only knows how to really express any of her emotions through anger."

She should really stop doing that, hitting him with things that cause his brain to come to a screeching halt. She hadn't been lying though. You had to know Hiyori pretty well to be able to even partially decipher the meaning behind her tirades because she really did seem to only know how to express herself through the single emotion of anger. Pretty much it was her default setting and when you got right down to it it was a pretty sad state to live in. Then again, being the damaged people they were the Visored all had their peculiarities.

Unless she was reading her mercurial little friend wrong, and she doubted that she was, Hiyori's ranting at Ichigo's barely dressed state, a state she had been the cause of, was because she couldn't admit that she liked what she saw. She didn't know how to handle the feeling and that feeling scared her. So she had done what she always did, ranted and threw one of her sandals at him and chased him around the training room. Any further discussion about that though could wait until later.

She sighed. "Fine, I'll cut you a break this time and save you any further trauma. I'll dive in first and you can strip and join me while I'm not looking. But," she poked him in the chest and smirked. "Next time _you_ are getting naked first and I _will_ be watching."

Unable to resist one last parting shot, she grabbed his head with both hands, pulled him down, and kissed him before turning and diving into the pool. It took a moment for his mind to reboot...again. He kind of felt like he had just taken several left and right jabs to the head. Not enough to harm him but certainly enough to disorient him and leave him reeling. He should be used to having crazy things happen in his life but tonight had still thrown him for a quite a loop.

And as he watched her leisurely swim down the length of the pool, he smiled and realized that he was okay with that.

* * *

Thanks for reading. Please leave a review or comment on your way out. (Trolls and idiots excepted, you will be ignored, everyone else is welcome)

And while you're hanging around, why not check out my other stories.


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer: ** Bleach is owned by Tite Kubo. He created this world, I'm just playing in it.

This is the second to last chapter. Thankfully writing this chapter was the exact opposite of the experience that the last two were. It all came free and easy and I already have most of the final chapter already written. to.

So, enjoy.

 **Lonely Exile**

 _ **Chapter 4:**_

Their relationship was far different than any relationship she had been in before. For one thing the modern world of the living had far more things to entertain oneself with than the stuck in the ancient past world of the Soul Society did and it gave them more things to do together. Second was that even though Ichigo did have the blood of one of the afterlife's noble clans running through his veins, he acted nothing like a noble. While the Shiba were known to be rather boisterous and not a bunch of pretentious snobs, Ichigo was more sedate than his kin even with his own bouts of occasional manic behaviour. His father on the other hand was a different story. He was a crazy Shiba through and through.

She had actually gone without being in a relationship for quite a while before being exiled. It was after a particularly nasty break up with a man who had turned out to be a rather manipulative and unfaithful noble ass under the outward guise he tried to show everyone else. She was nobody's conquest or piece on the side and she made that painfully aware to him with a very public tongue lashing and beating. She had actually gone too far and was potentially facing the wrath of the idiot's clan...until her Captain stepped in. Being a noble himself and one of considerably higher standing, he made it very clear in his usual unassuming way that there were to be no further problems.

As laid back as Shunsui could be, he could also be very intimidating if he wanted to be and he didn't have to put a lot of effort into it. She had been grateful for his help and had apologized for needing it, but he dismissed her concerns with a smile and assured her that he would do anything for his lovely Lisa-chan. Which set off another round of the teasing banter that they always seemed to fall into.

It was the same way between her and Ichigo, although she usually got the better of him which she liked and he didn't seem to mind too much. Besides continuing to train they did other normal date-like things like going out for meals and to the movies. While most guys would never do so, he willingly talked her into going out shopping on occasion. She had begun to lament the lack of things she owned, clothing in particular. While she still liked her usual attire she did find herself at times wishing she had something else.

Money and desire had been the two biggest obstacles. She had more of a desire now to have some variety and money had become less of an issue. Kisuke had always helped provide for them and they had also taken small jobs around the shadier parts of town. They had even essentially claimed a certain amount of the nearby neighbourhoods as being 'Visored Turf' and any thug who tried to set up shop or intimidate the locals found themselves waking up in an alley far away or in a hospital with an empty wallet and no idea who had rolled them. Some would try again but were met with the same result. To this day neither the thugs or the locals knew who was responsible for it.

Recently though, thanks to both Kisuke and Shinji, the remaining Visored in Karakura had been put on the payroll so to speak. Part of it was due to the ongoing reparations and compensation Shinji had put to the Old Man for the wrongs that had been done to them. Back pay for their time in exile was being negotiated and since they had been stepping up efforts to keep Karakura clear of Hollows, they deserved to be paid for those efforts as any other Shinigami would be.

The resident Shinigami had been left in place however, largely as punishment for his ineptitude she thought. His usual form of punishment for being late to nearly every Hollow alert or not getting there at all was to be harangued and abused by Hiyori. She didn't like him much anyway and was still pissed off at him because he hadn't been doing his job and Ichigo had nearly been eaten by a Hollow.

Thus, she now had some money to spend if she wished and she wasn't the type to make Ichigo pay for everything and she found that she really didn't mind going shopping now and then. It was always fun to to try clothes on for him and see how much she could tease him in the process. Shopping for a bathing suit for a much desired and anticipated trip to the beach had been particularly fun.

He was a total mess by the time she finished and he was practically drooling at the sight of her in the turquoise bikini and wrap she had finally settled on. With him, she considered that to be progress. Much better than the usual somewhat shy stuttering and turning red. That was fun in its own right but there were days where she wanted to get something a little closer to animal lust out of him, even if just to make sure he was actually capable of it.

The relationship was good for both of them. They had already begun to grow pretty comfortable around one another, but after the initial nerves of the uptick from friends to something more wore off they fell right back into that comfort level and things began to get even better. They both began to relax a lot more. They understood and could relate to each other and they could easily talk about things which was taking a lot of stress off of them. They enjoyed each other's company and they both felt happier than they had in a long time.

His friends began to notice the change in his mood but he wouldn't tell them what caused it. He wasn't trying to hurt them and he did feel a little guilty about it but he also felt that a little bit of payback was in order for them treating him like he was fragile glass rather than being supportive like they had always otherwise been. He didn't want to admit to it, but she knew he felt a bit betrayed and abandoned by them and especially so by his friends from the Soul Society. He didn't feel like they owed him anything for all that he had done but he was in the minority there. Even so, it still didn't mean that he wasn't hurt by their continued absence. Well, she would make damn sure he didn't feel alone again.

About a week after they had made things official, she gained the approval of his family after Yuzu had practically demanded that Ichigo bring her home for dinner. It had been amusing. While Isshin played the fool an ended up brawling with Ichigo, she had been confronted by the one's whose approval counted the most. As she sat in the living room of the Kurosaki home she found herself being stared down by Karin who had her arms crossed over her chest and a very Ichigo-like scowl on her face, and a stern looking Yuzu who sat next to her sister. Well, she supposed the look was intended to be stern but Yuzu couldn't quite pull it off like her twin could.

She almost snickered when asked what her intentions were towards their brother but she held it back because this was a very serious thing for them. They adored and thought the world of their brother. They had almost worried themselves sick when he was gone for long periods of time and they didn't know why. They had seen him banged up and injured and they had seen the toll that things had taken on his moods and his mental state. And what they had seen hadn't even been the worst of it.

They wanted him whole and happy and safe. They wanted the same adoring brother they always had known. In their own way and in whatever way they could, they wanted to protect him like he had always protected them. She respected that and agreed with it wholeheartedly. The afterlife and its problems had intruded upon his life and had relied upon him to fix what they couldn't or wouldn't. It damaged him and by extension them too along the way as they had to watch someone they loved so much be hurt and dragged down by they things he had witnessed and been a part of.

She was completely honest with them about her feelings for Ichigo. She admitted to her own role and that of Visored in how she felt they had failed him. She held nothing back. Well, maybe she did hold back on her physical desires where he was concerned but she suspected that Karin was picking that up just fine even if Yuzu wasn't. At least, if the little smirk on her face was was any indication. As it turned out the things that she said were not only what they needed to hear, but also things that she needed to hear herself say. A full admission from and to her own heart.

They were satisfied with what they heard from her although they did very seriously extract a promise from her that she would never hurt their big brother, that she would never break his heart. She found that to be a very easy promise to make. Later in the evening when Ichigo was helping his sisters do the dishes, Isshin took her aside and wanted the same promise. He also thanked her for rescuing his son from his slow downward spiral and for making him happier that he had seen him in a long time.

As for the physical aspect of their relationship, that was getting there. On the next usage of the pool she did get him to undress in front of her but she had to end up doing so at the same time. Apparently just watching alone made him a little too nervous. She did exact a little revenge by jumping onto his back in the pool. He freaked at the feel of her naked flesh against his but he was just going to have to get used to it. He was too jumpy around the opposite sex when anything more than the normal interaction of friends was involved and that needed to be fixed for both their sake but especially for his.

A week later when they went on their first real date he took the initiative to hold her hand. It was a bit of an awkward attempt but she made sure that her hand made its way into his. Within a week after that it was a kiss and by a week later the more heated make out sessions and exploration of roaming hands began. She was glad to see him becoming comfortable and relaxed enough to go there but damn it was driving her nuts to not go any farther yet. When she would get home Hiyori would start yelling because she was using up all the hot water in the shower and making too much noise...all with a red face due to the nature of said noises. If Hachi and Love noticed they didn't say anything but it was always easy to get under the skin and annoy the tiny terror. Potentially dangerous, but still fun.

So, it was inevitable that something would come along to put a bit of a kink in things. They'd had the occasional disagreement but it was nothing big and was easily talked out smoothed over. Neither of them wanted to have any kind of issues or problems getting between them. They were happy and wanted to stay that way. The problem, and it turned out to be a big one, came from out of nowhere and involved a third party.

Who was this unwanted intrusion that was threatening to completely wreck things for them? Some ass by the name of Ginjo Kugo and of course the brand of trouble he brought just had to be tied to the spiritual world...and ultimately another one of the Soul Society's seemingly endless string of loose ends. After Ichigo told her of his encounter with the guy at the Unigaya shop she kept her eyes peeled for the man while she was out patrolling for Hollows. He seemed to be suspiciously elusive but she did find him. Her instincts immediately told her the guy was trouble and the whole time she was observing him she felt like someone was observing her but she couldn't seem to spot them.

As things began to progress and she found out that Kugo had told Ichigo that he could restore his powers, she should have known she would end up fighting an uphill battle with him. She told him that she didn't trust Kugo. Why would someone he didn't know and had never met just come along out of the blue and tell him he could return his powers to him? Ichigo claimed to not trust him either but she knew that wasn't going to stop him from going and meeting with this self proclaimed head of a group calling itself Xcution.

They got into an argument about it with him thinking that she didn't trust him. Now that the thought of getting his powers back was in his head as a seemingly real possibility it was causing him to lose his sense of perspective and caution. She tried to convince him to at least let her watch his back but he refused. Kugo said they wouldn't meet him if he brought anyone, not even his girlfriend, and as it was he shouldn't have even told her as much as he had.

The fact that they mentioned her specifically told her that they knew who or at least what she was. In the end he stormed out angrily, telling her to stay the hell out of it. It felt like a punch in the gut and it hurt but she wasn't about to let the stubborn and aggravating berry off the hook. She followed him to his meeting, staying far enough back that she could keep track of him and hopefully staying out of sight of anyone who may be watching. The gigai she inhabited kept her reiatsu virtually undetectable and she was more than skilled enough to remain unnoticed.

Even if she was spotted she had a hunch that she might be okay so long as she didn't get too close. She didn't even need to know the exact location he was going to, the general vicinity would do for now. She figured this Xcution must want something from Ichigo because the idea that they somehow just wanted to see him get his powers back was not believable to her. Maybe it was the effect of too may years spent looking over her shoulder but she didn't take anything at face value until it was proven to be as advertised and he was too important to her to let this slide.

Later that night as Ichigo was headed back home her suspicions got a large boost. She had only seen a glimpse before they disappeared, but in a side alley she saw all the proof she needed to know that something was definitely up. Kisuke and Isshin, and they had made sure that Ichigo hadn't seen them as he walked by. If they were here then they knew exactly what was going on. Her blood was boiling and she waned to confront them but she knew she wasn't in the right frame of mind to do so and it might be to her advantage to try and dig up more on her own before she did so. Anything Kisuke was involved in wasn't easily unravelled unless he wanted you to know about it and the chances of her getting answers at that moment were as good as nonexistent.

She enlisted the help of the remaining Visored but they weren't able to gather a whole lot of information. They were able to identify seven different reiatsu signatures that were above the level of the average citizen and had a slight hollow feel within them. They were able to put faces to three of them. Ginjo himself, some pink haired girl, and a tall man in a white shirt who was always carrying a book and who seemed to be nearly as elusive as Ginjo was. This one sent alarm bells going off in her head because she had detected trace amounts of his reiatsu around Orihime and Chad and a few of Ichigo's other friends and even his sisters. Ishida had also been attacked and badly wounded and she detected traces of both Ginjo and this other man near where the Quincy had been found lying in pool of blood. Things is, it was looking like the man in the white shirt was supposed to be Ginjo's enemy, but something in her gut was nagging her about that.

In the area where Xcution seemed to have their base, there was a blank spot in one of the buildings where they couldn't sense any spirit energy, not even the small amount that a non-empowered human would have. It was also in the proximity of that particular place where Ichigo's signature would disappear from her senses. She thought about simply busting in and accepting whatever would happen in the aftermath between them but the fact that his father and Kisuke seemed to be aware of what was going on kept her from doing so.

It pissed her off mightily. Not hearing a thing from Ichigo the whole time as he just blindly dove headfirst into whatever was going on only added fuel to the fire and it hurt. She tried to go see Isshin but he was conveniently absent every time she tried to find him and she knew it wouldn't be any better with Kisuke. Finally things reached a breaking point and one night when she knew that both Kisuke and Isshin were holed up at the Urahara Shoten, she and Hiyori paid them a visit.

* * *

They were a pathetic looking sight. Two former Captains of the Gotei 13 crumpled up against the wall of the Shoten's sitting room, cut, bruised, bloodied...and sporting numerous welts that bore the imprint of a flip flop sandal. Lisa and Hiyori sat across the table from them, a cup of tea placed before each of them courtesy of Tessai who was sitting off to the side. While the tiny terror kept the two groaning men pinned in place with her stare, Lisa, looking somewhat calm...ish despite the fact that her hands were tightly clenched into fists, turned to the large former Captain of the Kido Corp and bowed her head.

"I apologize for the mess Tessai-san."

The large man nodded, crossing his arms over his chest. "I suppose it was inevitable," he sighed. "I warned them that skulking about would not be a good idea."

"Et tu Tessai?" Kisuke croaked as he struggled to a sitting position.

"This is not a good time for your attempts to deflect things with your bad humour Urahara," she all but growled.

"I think my nose is broken," he whined.

"That's too bad," Hiyori said in a tone of voice that only promised more pain. Her left eye was twitching and she was slowly raising one of her sandals. "Because I was trying to break your whole face!"

"Gyaah!" Kisuke yelped as he flinched back.

"Kisuke," Isshin stopped him as he sat up, turning his head back and forth an getting a couple of satisfying pops out of his neck. "That's enough. We're caught so lets just face the music."

"There shouldn't be any music to face," Lisa spat. "After all of the times where he's been in the dark because of things _none_ of us told him, the two of you decide to do it yet again?"

"Do you think he wouldn't have went to them anyway even if we did tell him what we know?" Kisuke asked.

"Of course he would have!" she countered. "But at least if he knew he may not have gone in to it totally blind!"

"I'm afraid my son has a nasty habit of being wilfully blind when something is important to him," Isshin said. "Damn the consequences and full speed ahead. His power is for the benefit of those he cares about. He's not going to pass up an opportunity to get it back."

"I know that," she said. "But this whole thing just screams set up to me. There is no way this is legitimate."

"Unfortunately you're not wrong," Kisuke admitted with a sigh. He turned to his assistant. "Tessai, would you bring me the file folder please? And the other item as well."

"Patience," another voice cut in before she could say anything more. A small black cat jumped up onto the table and sat between Hiyori and Kisuke. "We will tell you what is going on."

"Yoruichi," Lisa said, scowling. "You're in on this too?"

"Unfortunately yes," the cat answered, looking as remorseful as it could in such a form. "I could provide more up close intelligence on the situation than what Kisuke's surveillance systems could alone and it allows me to keep a closer eye on Ichigo."

"You can sound as reluctant as ya want," Hiyori growled. "But ya still let the berry head get thrown to the fucking wolves again."

"I would have thought you would have been the more reasonable of the three Yoruichi," Lisa accused.

The formed Captain bristled at her words. She didn't like being spoken to in such a way but she supposed she could let it slide. "Believe me when I say that I am not entirely happy with my own involvement in this," she said evenly. "However this situation requires that a close eye be kept upon it and I can do that even if I do not like the situation. We will tell you what is happening and I can guarantee that you are not going to like it. Still, it must be allowed to play out as it has been."

"I already don't like it," Lisa affirmed. "And whatever is going on is going to have to be pretty damn compelling for me to leave it alone."

Tessai returned with a thick file folder and a long box shaped item covered with a dark cloth. He set the box behind and between Kisuke and Isshin and lay the folder down in front of the Shoten owner. Kisuke opened the file and took out a series of photos and laid them on the table.

"Xcution consists of seven members," he began. The last two pictures he laid out were set off to one side. It was Ginjo and the tall man in the white shirt. "But these two are the ones we should worry about the most. You are already aware of Ginjo, but the other man goes by the name Shukuro Tsukishima. They and their comrades are known as Fullbringers."

"What the hell is a Fullbringer," Hiyori asked. "Never heard of it."

"Neither had we," Kisuke continued. "Nearly everything in the world has its own rudimentary form of a soul and apparently Fullbring is the ability to call upon and utilize that soul. Each Fullbringer has a specific item that they utilize for their unique individual power."

"Fullbringer's gain their ability from being exposed to the spirit energy of a Hollow while in their mother's womb," Yoruichi added.

"Further to that," Kisuke said. "Ginjo Kugo also happens to be the first Substitute Shinigami. He went rogue and disappeared, feeling that the Soul Society had betrayed him. This is the first that he's been seen since."

"It is unclear if he manifested soul reaper powers on his own or took them from someone else," Yoruichi said. "It is known however that since he went rogue he has on a number of occasions killed soul reapers and taken their power. He is a wanted criminal in the eyes of the Soul Society."

"Then why the hell didn't someone track him down and take him out?" Hiyori growled.

"He's very good at remaining hidden and he's powerful," Isshin chimed in. "It may have required sending a Captain to the world of the living and the Old Man doesn't like doing that unless he really has to."

"So like usual they let one of their problems run loose so it could have the chance to come back and bite them in the ass later," Lisa groused. "So how was he betrayed?" It was notable that she didn't phrase it as _'how does he think he was betrayed'_.

"He discovered the true purpose for the Substitute Shinigami combat pass," Kisuke answered. "It's a surveillance device that allows the Soul Society to keep track of his whereabouts. It also analyzes and regulates his spiritual energy." He cocked his head to one side. "When in soul reaper form you've seen how Ichigo's spirit energy rages around him when agitated. Did you ever wonder why it didn't tear apart his human body when he wasn't? The pass absorbed and regulated his energy."

Lisa thought for a moment. "So did Ginjo come to Ichigo looking for an ally? Tell him about the true nature of the pass, give him back his power and...what? Attack the Soul Society?"

"You are partially right," Yoruichi said. "If he could turn Ichigo to his way of thinking I'm sure he would accept him as an ally. However that would only be a fringe benefit to his true goal."

"Which is?" Hiyori drawled angrily. "Will somebody just get to the fricken point?!"

"What Ginjo has told Ichigo is that Xcution wants to bring out his own Fullbringer powers so that they can then transfer their own unwanted powers to him and restore what he has lost," Yoruichi continued. "Their true intent is to bring out his powers and take them for themselves."

"Do you have any idea what that will do to Ichigo if they succeed?" Lisa ground out tightly. "Having his power back so that he can protect everyone again means everything to him. That's why the idiot dove headfirst into this without thinking it through. If they return any measure of power to him then take it away..."

"It will crush him," Isshin said gravely.

"And you went and let him do it anyway!?" Hiyori screamed, beating Lisa to the punch.

"If we intervened we would have been stopped!" Kisuke thundered. It was rare for him to raise his voice or use his spiritual pressure to silence things and regain control of the situation. "Now listen to the rest of what I have to say and don't interrupt. As Yoruichi said before, you aren't going to like it but it's the way things are and you'll just have to deal with it."

He gave them a moment to calm down. Hiyori was grumbling to herself and Lisa closed her eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. "Fine," she said in a deadly calm voice that would have caused lesser beings to flee in terror.

"After Ginjo went rogue," Kisuke resumed. "The Old Man held a Captain's meeting. They all agreed that if another Substitute Shinigami were to arise that Ginjo would be certain to seek them out. The plan was to let him do so and then both would be eliminated at the same time."

Both girl's reiatsu began to rise quickly, heavily tainted by their Hollow nature and they immediately found themselves surrounded by a barrier.

"Ladies," Tessai said calmly. "I already have enough damage to the shop to repair as it is. Please do not cause any more." Once they had calmed back down he released the barrier.

"If anyone other than Ichigo had become the next substitute, the plan would have gone ahead unaltered," Yoruichi continued. "But Ichigo kicked the Seireitei awake and made them start to change. His desire to have power and use it for the right reasons, to use it to save them when he had no real reason to had an impact on them."

"Therefore the plan changed," Kisuke said. "They would let the interaction go on and see what Ichigo decided to do in the end when Ginjo revealed the truth to him. If he did the unlikely and sided with Ginjo, they would eliminate them both. If he didn't, they would not and Ichigo would most likely have to fight Ginjo."

Isshin spoke next. "There was one problem however and that was how Ichigo was supposed to do that if he didn't have his power back...his full power, because he would need it to have any chance against Ginjo."

"That's where this comes in," Kisuke said as he scooted back and turned to the box. He pulled off the cloth that was covering it to reveal a glass box encased in Kido that held a glowing sword. "We would need a way to give Ichigo back his power that would do so immediately so I came up with this. I was working on it anyway before Ginjo ever showed up."

"Kisuke presented the idea to the Captains and Head Captain Yamamoto gave it his approval," Yoruichi said. "In recognition of everything that Ichigo had done and for forcing much needed change upon them, he broke with tradition and ordered all of the Captains and Lieutenants to pour their spiritual energy into the sword so that it could be used to return Ichigo's power to him."

"Everyone here has contributed as well with the exception of yourselves, Love, and Hachigen," Kisuke said. "Stabbing the sword into the centre of his being will inject the power into him and it will unite with the wellspring of power that resides dormant within the depths of his soul. His power was never truly gone, it's too vast for even something like the Final Getsuga Tensho to drain it completely. There was always a huge hidden reserve that would remain untapped until he would realize a true connection to his Zanpakuto spirits. Or more precisely, not until he had an actual true Zanpakuto."

"You mean that baldy berry will get even more power when he gets a real Zanpakuto?" Hiyori asked incredulously.

"Without a doubt," Kisuke answered. He chuckled. "I'm actually a little surprised that Nimaiya-san hasn't tried to sneak an Asauchi to Ichigo by now. Heck, with Ichigo's power and potential I imagine he'd want to forge the Zanpakuto for him personally."

"So we're just supposed to sit by and do nothing while Ichigo risks his life to fix another one of Soul Society's mistakes?" Lisa asked darkly, her fingers locked onto the edge of the table and the wood creaking ominously. She looked up and nodded to the pictures. "You said those two were the ones we should worry about the most. You've explained Ginjo so what about the other one."

"As Kisuke said earlier, his name is Tsukishima," Yoruichi answered. "Despite them trying to make it look like they are adversaries at the moment, we believe that he is Ginjo's right hand man."

"What makes him particularly dangerous is the ability of his Fullbring," Kisuke said. "He draws upon the soul of the bookmark in the book he always carries and forms it into a sword. Being cut by that sword with his ability active leaves no wound, but we believe that he can place himself into his the person's memories. He makes himself someone important in their lives and influences their behaviour as such."

Lisa's eyes burned with anger. "I've sensed his reiatsu around all of Ichigo's friends!" She turned on Isshin. "Around your daughters!"

"I know damn it!" he shot back. "I know! He's elusive and got them on the way to school. I couldn't get there soon enough."

"Couldn't or wouldn't...it wouldn't matter much either way would it?" she said darkly. "Since you've all decided to do exactly what the Old Man wants." She stood and began walking for the door. "I need some air before I throw up."

Silence reigned for a few moments after she left. "Well, I suppose that could have gone worse," Kisuke said.

"Kisuke..." Hiyori growled.

"Ahh...Hiyori-chan, don't be hasty..."

"Shaddap!"

THWACK!

* * *

She ended up sitting on the roof of the shop, leaning back on her hands and looking up at the moon. She had gotten used to doing this with Ichigo and it was usually very relaxing, however she was having trouble getting her anger to leave her. The Soul Society seemed to have an endless supply of problems that they were either too inept or too lazy to deal with. She didn't believe for a second that they couldn't have found Ginjo Kugo if they had tried. Apparently bringing him to justice for the things he had done after going rogue wasn't worth the effort and the lives of the Shinigami he had killed for their power were worth nothing. Had Central 46 gained so much control over the Old Man that he wouldn't even act, even if it was against their wishes, in order to exact justice for the honour of his own soldiers?

Whatever the reasons it was a pathetic state of affairs for an organization like the Gotei 13. The afterlife was a disgraceful mess. It was ruled by a collection of nobles interested only in their own power and prestige, appointed by an absentee monarch who seemingly paid it little attention and protected by a military force that was horribly weak beyond its Captains and Lieutenants, and those Captains rarely went into combat. Instead they relied on a teen aged boy who never should have known about or been involved with the afterlife until his mortal life had ended to fix their mistakes for them. Then as the icing on the cake they abandon him after he used up his power to save them and have nothing to do with him again until they have another crisis for him to take care of.

Of course, she wasn't too happy with Ichigo either since he decided to dive headfirst right back into that pool, even after everything he had said about not doing things like that again, about thinking things through first. She wasn't very happy with herself either for not being able to stop him from jumping into this blindly. She didn't know what else she could have done. Sure, she could have taken advantage of his lack of power and used hers to stop him, hold him back at least until he listened and actually got the point but that would have only served to alienate him and further remind him how powerless he was and make him all the more determined.

She was suddenly aware of someone taking a seat next to her. It was Yoruichi, now in human form and dressed in her usual attire. She was also holding a large bottle of sake. The former Captain didn't say anything right away, she just quietly joined her in gazing at the moon, at least until the silence stretched longer than she wanted.

"The Strawberry is always a handful isn't he?" the former noble began. "Trouble always seems to find him."

"How much of that trouble was someone else's doing?" Lisa countered.

"Probably most of it," Yoruichi admitted. She opened the bottle and handed it to her. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry. I don't like the Head Captain's reasoning, this plan, or its execution but unfortunately we have to be along for the ride here and see what happens. I have tried to stay as close to him when he's around Xcution as I can in case things went sideways."

Lisa took a drink and handed the bottle back. "I appreciate that," she said. "But did this really have to happen this way, with Ichigo being blind to it? They have to know that he would never side with Ginjo."

The cat woman took a drink. "I think they do know but you know how the Old Man works, I think he needs to see it. He probably figures Ichigo needs to go through the process. Plus, he could also being doing this to placate Central. _They_ probably have no trust in Ichigo because of his hybrid nature and the change that he has fostered...and he's outside of their control and we both know how they feel about things like that."

"True," she agreed, accepting the bottle back. "And we both know that they are not likely to change anytime soon and that worries me where Ichigo's future is concerned. If they get paranoid enough they could order the squads against him."

"Then they would have a full scale rebellion on their hands," Yoruichi said darkly. "I don't think they realize just how much support there is for him among the ranks and especially among the top officers. I don't think even the Old Man would support that order. He did break with his long held sense of tradition after all and okay giving Ichigo's powers back to him."

"That's something else that bothers me," Lisa said, scowling. "If they were so grateful why did they wait seventeen months to reward him with the return of his powers? It all sounds rather disingenuous for them to wait until they needed him before they agreed to make it happen. Any of them who got to know him at all had to know what being powerless would do to him and yet they left him to rot as he felt more and more helpless."

Yoruichi shrugged, taking the bottle as it was passed back. "When has the Soul Society ever done the right thing at the right time for the right reasons?"

"I just hope this doesn't all blow up in our faces," Lisa said, her tone worried. "Because if it does it's Ichigo who's going to suffer for it."

Yoruichi smirked. "You really do love him don't you?"

"Yes," she affirmed with a nod and without hesitation. She looked back up at the moon and let out a half held breath. "I didn't expect to end up feeling the way I do and what I'm feeling is something I haven't known for a long, long time. So long that I had nearly forgotten what it was like. I don't want to lose that."

"And you won't," Yoruichi assured her with absolute confidence. "Ichigo will get his power back, tell Ginjo to get bent, then beat him into the ground. It will be a typical berry-head operation."

"Well, he won't be alone," Lisa vowed. "Despite his stupidity and despite what the Old Man want's, he won't have to do this on his own. He can have Ginjo, but I have my own target. Soul Society can do whatever they want with the rest of them."

Yoruichi grinned. "You have a plan in that pretty little head of yours don't you?"

"I'm working on it." She took a long drink. "But I think I need to wring a little more information out of those two idiots down below."

"Should probably hurry then before Hiyori tenderizes them too much."

Lisa shrugged. "Let her enjoy herself for a while. They deserve to take their lumps."

* * *

 **AN:** I know there will be people who probably won't like that I didn't write out full scenes for things like her visit to his home and her talk with his sisters, their dates, their shopping trips etc.

For those people, you'll just have to deal with it. As far as I'm concerned all it really would have been was filler to pad out a couple of extra chapters and make for a bigger word count. Considering what my focus for the story is it would essentially have been pointless. Besides, we've all seen similar stuff in other stories a hundred times.

There is also the fact that the last two chapters took very real toll on me and I did not want or need to write another four or five chapters, especially when I felt that it wasn't necessary.

Once I made the decision to get this done much sooner, it was as if all of the pressure and difficulty just disappeared. I hit the 'flow' and I began pounding this out quickly. I had about ten thousand words down and decided that I could split it and make two chapters. Hopefully I should have the fifth and final chapter done in about a week.

So, thanks for reading this chapter and I hope you will be so kind as to leave a review, and maybe check out my other stories while you're hanging around.


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer:** Bleach is owned by Tite Kubo. He created this world, I'm just playing in it.

Last chapter.

 **Lonely Exile**

 _ **Chapter 5:**_

One of the hardest things she'd ever had to do in her life was follow Ichigo around as the whole mess he'd gotten himself into was grinding to its endgame. She'd made Kisuke give her one of his reiatsu concealing cloaks and she had learned concealment Kido from Hachi. Genius that he was at the Demon Arts, he had created the Kido himself. It wasn't perfected yet, it worked best if she was stationary, but it would help keep her hidden even as she moved. She wasn't terribly worried about that however since none of the Fullbringers had been able to detect her before when she didn't have it.

She had been watching when Ichigo came home and found Tsukishima there, his sisters under the influence of his power and believing he was their favourite cousin. She could feel the dread and horror radiating off of him with the knowledge that the man had gotten to his family and it increased when he realized his friends had been affected as well. His rage was almost a living thing as he confronted the man and he looked like he was going to break when they all defended the stranger and chastised him.

Her own anger had spiked as well, especially since she had become very fond of Ichigo's sisters and she had to try her hardest to reign it in to make sure she didn't lose her focus and do something to give herself away. When he ran from the house she knew he would be headed straight for Ginjo. She didn't know how he had done it but the former substitute had Ichigo totally fooled and had gotten him to trust him seemingly without question, so it was a given that that was where he would go.

He led Ichigo to a mansion on the outskirts of the city, a very convenient location for what was bound to happen. Once inside he was confronted again by his friends and family about his behaviour, this time with Chad and Orihime present. She could see the strain on his face, a mixture of anger, helplessness, and despair and it took all she had not to intervene right then and there. Even though he knew they were all under Tsukishima's power, their words hurt and were tearing him to shreds. He didn't know what to do.

He chased Tsukishima to the upstairs of the house and the fight began. He managed to cut off the Fullbringer's arm but then immediately found himself confronted by Orihime and Chad as they protected him. He was beginning to lose himself to his despair and as the fight ended up on the roof she knew the end would come soon. Ginjo took a strike from Tsukishima to protect Ichigo just as Ishida arrived. The Quincy tried to explain to Ichigo what was going on but he didn't know who to believe, he no longer knew who he could trust, didn't know who was and wasn't under the influence of Tsukishima's Fullbring.

That was when Ginjo struck and began to tell Ichigo of his plan. How he had let Tsukishma cut him with his Fullbring so that he would be convinced that they were actually enemies and how cutting him again returned him to normal. How everything they did was to bring power out of Ichigo just so they could steal it from him. Every word was like a cut inflicted upon the one she loved, bringing him deeper and deeper into despair. But that in itself wasn't enough for them. They laughed, and they mocked him. They were proud of themselves for how well and how easily they had sucked him in.

Within her concealment she was shaking, trembling in both rage and sorrow for the ordeal she had to let them put Ichigo through. The others weren't in position yet and ready to act. What the hell was taking so long? How much did they think he could endure before before they stepped in? Her blood thundered in her ears and her breathing became heavy. She was on the verge of losing it, on the edge of putting and end to Ginjo right now and to hell with what Soul Society and the Old Man wanted. His voice droned on and on like a persistent resonance that ground against her nerves. Why wouldn't he just shut up?

Her focus returned to her with a whiplash effect. Why _was_ Ginjo still talking? What was he waiting for? She looked directly at him and listened to his tone. That son of a bitch. That rotten, cruel son of a bitch...he was enjoying this. He was getting off on the pain he was inflicting on Ichigo, drinking it in and savouring it like a fine wine. It would be one thing if he was doing this to a Shinigami, that was who his grudge was against after all, but he had been like him, a substitute. Ichigo had never done a thing to the man, had never even met him or known who he was before this all started, yet Ginjo was mocking him and enjoying his pain like he was his worst enemy.

She nearly fell to her knees when Ginjo shoved the point of his massive sword into Ichigo's chest and began siphoning off the power he had regained. She did fall to her knees when Ichigo broke and began to scream and cry. Fortunately no one noticed the slight, out of place splash as she hit the rain soaked roof. Rage and sorrow fought in equal measure within her.

The boy, man, who had the guts to face down the might of the Gotei 13 for the life of someone he barely knew. The one who travelled to Hueco Mundo to rescue a friend and died for the effort. Twice. The one who had faced the Bounts and went to the Valley of Screams to defeat the Dark Ones, who had willingly entered Hell, twice to save family and friends. The one who ultimately stopped Muramasa. The hero of the Winter War who had stopped Aizen and saved them all...was reduced to a broken, sobbing, screaming heap, shakily supported on his hands and knees in the pouring rain with the hope that had been rekindled within him now crushed as he begged for the power to be returned to him.

She needed to do something but she couldn't move, couldn't take her eyes off of him. It struck her in that moment just exactly how fond she had become of him, how much she actually loved him. Not having his powers meant nothing to her, she would still love him all the same. But it meant everything to him. He was a protector, it's what he was born to do and that's what his power was for. His power and his pain, it was all for the sake of others. She wanted to do something very un-Lisa like and wrap her arms around him until he calmed down, to let him know that he wasn't alone and surrounded by enemies.

Suddenly she felt something, something that it seemed no one else noticed. She felt a tiny little blip of his power, something that she recognized as the almost undetectable sign of someone slipping into their inner world. The power she had felt from his Fullbring shouldn't have been strong enough to let him access his inner world and it was gone now anyway. Had it begun to draw on the massive reserves of power that Kisuke had said were buried deep within Ichigo? She watched him carefully and after a few seconds she could see the tension in his body easing up. When he spoke, now telling and not begging Ginjo to give his power back she couldn't help but let a small smile grace her lips. He had found his resolve again, the reasons why he did what he did. She tuned out the rest as he and Ginjo spoke. It was time to act.

Standing, she released the concealment Kido and drew Haguro Tonbo from its sheath and drove it through Tsukishima's back just to the right of his heart. Ten inches of the blade protruded from his chest.

"Tsukishima!" Ginjo screamed.

She flipped back the hood of her cloak with her left hand, then directed her palm in his direction. "Shakkaho!" The surprise fireball pushed him to the far side of the roof and she turned her attention back to the gasping Fulbringer on her sword.

"Shukuro Tsukishima," she spoke coldly. "You know who I am and I assume you know what I am, but let me introduce myself anyway. I am Lisa Yadomaru, a Visored and I am the one who murdered you. Remember my face and the sound of my voice. Insert them into your memories like you insert yourself into the memories of others. Remember this pain and the despair of dying. Never forget it as you take it with you to the afterlife."

With a twist and a slice to the left she bisected his heart and carved her blade out through his side in a gush of blood. He was dead before he his body hit the roof. She looked up and met Ichigo's eyes for a second before she heard an 'oof' and a splash from behind him. There, sitting in a water puddle and with a bewildered look on her face was Rukia Kuchiki. Looming over her, as much as one as short as herself could and holding the glowing white sword that would kick start Ichigo's power, was an angrily grinning Hiyori.

"Back off midget," the pig tailed blonde snarled. "He's one of us and if anyone is going to do this it's another Visored. All you Shinigami do is screw shit up anyway!"

"What the hell?!" came the shout of a familiar voice as a Senkaimon opened above. The voice belonged to Renji Abari who stood in the dimensional opening with his Captain, Byakuya Kuchiki, Captain's Hitsugaya and Kenpachi, and Ikaku Madarame."

"Figures that the Old Man would send the ones he was most familiar with to do his dirty work," Lisa drawled. "They can take care of the other Fullbringers since they won't be needed for anything else." She turned to Hiyori. "Get him going, I'll keep Ginjo busy until he's ready." She looked to Ichigo. "Hachi and Love are guarding your friends and your sisters behind a barrier so don't be afraid to use whatever power you need to." She stared at him hard. "He made you his bitch Ichigo so don't waste time in kicking his ass. Remember what I taught you." With that she disappeared in a burst of Shunpo and crossed swords with Ginjo.

"Heh, I'm going to enjoy this," Hiyori cackled.

Before Ichigo could respond she rammed the glowing sword into his chest right up to the hilt. She then grabbed the front of his shirt and yanked him down to her level, smashing her forehead into his and making him see stars.

"Now listen up baldy," she growled. "You jumped into this mess like a freaking idiot and you hurt Lisa when you did. You're a freakin dumbass. She'll probably forgive ya, but I don't care." With a deft flip of her foot she was suddenly holding a flip flop in her left hand. "Live or die, after this is over I'm going to beat the shit out of you! You hear me baldy!"

"I hear you, I hear you!" he quickly said. He sighed and looked into the angry girl's eyes. "And I'll take whatever beating you give me because I deserve it."

"Damn right you will," she smirked. She pushed some of her power to the blade to get the process started. "Now take your power back and go beat that friggin jackass!"

* * *

"So Kurosaki needs to have his girlfriend fight his battles for him huh?" Ginjo asked with a sneer on his face as they traded blows.

"It's temporary," she returned. "He's about to have his power returned to him."

"Bullshit," he countered. "I took all the power he has, there's nothing else there."

"I could give you a long, technical explanation of just how wrong you are but why waste the breath," she mocked. "Me or him, you'll be as dead as your friend soon." Turns out that was the right button to push given how furious she became.

"And you're going to pay for that," he growled through clenched teeth. "You didn't need to kill him. Damn Shinigami, I'm going to cut you into pieces and send them back to your boyfriend! Make him cry about that too."

He never even saw her move and barely got his Claymore up in time to keep from losing his head. As it was the strength of the blow sent him skidding back through the air. And she only had one hand on her sword.

"Don't ever call me a Shinigami," she intoned coldly. "I'm a Visored. You really are a small and petty man aren't you? Ever listen to the crap that comes out of your mouth? You're nothing but a bully who gets off on making others miserable. You're pathetic, not even worth the time it will take to kill you."

"Save it," he snarled. "I'm not some moron that's going to get sucked in to attacking blindly."

"Good for you," she said dismissively as a massive pillar of blue spirit energy shot into the sky behind them. She sheathed her sword and began to walk away. "Tell it to Ichigo, I'm sure he'll care just as little as I do."

Between the surprising feel of the massive spiritual energy that was flooding the area and her infuriating dismissal, he nearly didn't dodge the crescent of pale blue energy that rocketed toward him from the dissipating pillar. Deflecting it sent him hurtling across the sky as the Getsuga Tensho exploded above and instantly evaporated the storm clouds leaving a clear, star filled sky in place of the pouring rain.

Ichigo flashed into the air, stopping where he had just been seconds before. "Lisa," he began.

"Later," she said, cutting him off. She stepped past him then dropped from the sky.

He sighed. "I'm such an idiot." As soon as he had heard of the possibility of getting his powers back he had jumped at it like a Pavlovian dog drooling at the sound of a bell. Despite his protestations otherwise, all sense of caution and suspicion had left his mind. They had argued and he had walked out, acting like a petulant child that hadn't gotten his way. Look where that had gotten him? Betrayed and reduced to a shattered shell of himself until he rediscovered his resolve. His friends and family had their memories messed with all to help break him. It was a freaking mess and it was his fault.

He glared up at Ginjo. "Time to take care of this ass hat." He just hoped he could fix things with Lisa afterwards.

* * *

She didn't really need to see the fight, she already knew how it would turn out. She went back to the house and checked with Love and Hachi who were helping Kisuke and Isshin make sure that everyone there who had been under the influence of Tsukishima's Fullbring were alright. Physically, they were fine and the false memories seemed to already be fading and becoming hard to recall. They did however remember everything they had said and done and that was a little harder for them to deal with, but in their angst and remorse it showed her just how much they all cared about Ichigo, how much he meant to each of them.

His sisters were mortified that they had hurt their big brother and Chad and Orihime were nearly inconsolable since they had actually fought to defend the Fullbringer from Ichigo. How they all felt summed up why she had treated getting rid of Tsukishima as a personal vendetta. Their memories had been violated and manipulated. The circumstances and outcome may have been different but it was far too similar to how the Visored's souls were violated by Aizen. It had become a one hundred percent certainty that no matter how this whole thing went down she was going to kill Tsukishima even if she had to chase him across the entire world of the living to do it.

Satisfied that everyone was doing as well as could be expected and were being looked after and protected, she went and found Hiyori. She was in a clearing some distance behind the house, standing with her arms crossed over her chest and looking rather grumpily at the soul reapers as they stood before her, watching a large black box up in the sky. Evidently they had made short work of their opponents and the box in the sky had to be the work of Yukio...something or other, she didn't recall the rest of his name and didn't care to. The little twerp was currently encased in a block of ice next to Captain Hitsugaya. She didn't care where the other Fullbringers were or what happened to them, they were of little consequence. She just wanted this fight done with and the Shinigami to go back to Soul Society.

"Dumbass is taking too long," Hiyori groused.

"I told him not to waste time," she sighed. She glanced over to see Rukia glaring at Hiyori. "I think you made a new enemy."

"Too bad for her," the blonde retorted. "Not my fault that she can't handle the truth."

"We do not screw up everything we touch!" Rukia shot back.

"Then why the hell is he up there cleaning up another one of your messes!" Hiyori thundered, pointing up at box. "Stupid midget."

"Midget! You're shorter than I am!"

Further insults were stalled when the box began to come apart, with Hitsugaya's captive babbling on about how impossible that should be.

Breaking the impossible...a sure sign of Ichigo's intervention if there ever was one.

"Rukia," her brother spoke, instantly gaining her attention. "While I cannot wholly agree with what she said, she is also not entirely wrong either. Too many of our problems became Ichigo's problems and we needed to rely far too heavily upon him to solve them. Gratitude for what he has done for us all was the motivation to return his powers to him."

"Only once he was needed again," Lisa retorted. "All of you know him, know how important it is to him to be able to protect those around him. So what do you think it was like for him to spend seventeen months unable to do that?"

"It was killin him not see the friends he made and fought beside and spilled blood for," Hiyori added. "And when you finally show up it's so that you can kill him if he sides with that dumbass." She pointed up to Ginjo. "Some freakin gratitude."

"Without his powers he had a chance to live a normal life free of the problems of the afterlife," Hitsugaya said. "We were ordered not to interfere with that." The look on his face though made it clear that he hadn't really liked those orders and if asked he would admit as much. Despite his grousing about not being referred to by his proper title, he liked and respected Ichigo. He considered him a friend and he had missed his presence.

"Ironic isn't it?" Lisa said with a disgusted sneer. "Not one of you would go against those orders or break your precious rules for someone who did break every rule for you."

Rukia went to say something but was interrupted by Ginjo rocketing down into the ground like an incoming missile with Ichigo only a second behind him. The Fullbringer made one last desperate attack and was quickly, finally, cut down. He'd never be bothering anyone again.

"Looks like you got your answer," Hiyori sassed. "So why don't you all get the hell out of here and go back to the Soul Society." She started walking away. "I promised the dumbass an ass kicking and he's going to get it."

Lisa turned to walk away as well. "You can go tell the Head Captain what he should have already known. And before any of you ever see Ichigo again maybe you can come up with a suitable apology."

* * *

She arrived a few minutes before he did. They had decided to wait a couple of days before trying to straighten things out between them and they would do so at that particular spot along the river that was like sacred ground to Ichigo. Perhaps, subconsciously, they both felt that no lies or half truths would be told at a place of such meaning and it would be an ideal spot for them to talk. There would be no ducking or hiding, just truth. Later there was going to be a gathering at the Kurosaki residence, as much of a chance for his friends and family to get together and make sure they were all doing okay after being under Tsukishima's influence as it was to celebrate the return of Ichigo's powers. One way or another they wanted to get things settled between them before then.

She took the time over the last couple of days to let go of the stress that accumulated since the mess started and got her thoughts in order. It may seem like figuring out what she wanted to say would be easy but it really wasn't. She had to take the time to examine exactly what it was she was feeling and why and figure out how she wanted to express that. Of course, it wasn't going to matter much what she figured out in advance, at the moment of truth the words were likely to come out differently anyway. That was alright she supposed just so long as the meaning was the same and made clear. It didn't matter much in the end how it was said.

She turned and looked out over the river and after a moment she closed her eyes and took a deep breath as the light breeze washed over her. His reiatsu could be felt all over Karakura again and it really was like a protective shroud. Warm and comfortable. She could feel him drawing nearer, his spirit energy like a beacon to her senses. He really needed to learn how to reign it in. Soon she could see him walking down the concrete path towards her, wearing jeans and a dark blue t-shirt and with his hands stuffed in his pockets.

She turned and waited for him and when he stopped in front of her they just looked into each others eyes, not saying a word. She was the first to move...and she hit him with a hard right cross that spun him around and sent him tumbling down the bank toward the river. Luckily the flat area at the bottom was wide enough that he came to a stop before he ended up in the water. She sat down at the top of the bank with her sheathed Zanpakuto across her lap and gripped in both hands. He stood up, rubbing his jaw and working his neck back and forth. After brushing off a few stray leaves and blades of grass he made his way back up the hill and plopped down to her left.

"I deserved that," he sighed.

"You might have gotten more if Hiyori hadn't already worked you over," she said.

"I'm still sore from that," he admitted. They both remained silent for a moment. "I'm sorry," he said finally. "You were right. I wasn't being cautious enough or suspicious enough...I said I was and I thought I was but I had already made up my mind as soon as I heard that I had a chance to get my powers back. I got suckered in like a dumb punk and I pulled my friends and family into it right along with me. I talked to you like an immature jackass and said a lot of stupid stuff and I hurt you. I don't know how to begin making up for that."

"I'm not sure which it was that hurt worse," she began. "You turning and walking away from me, or you not letting me watch your back. It felt a little like I was being thrown away again, especially when I thought that you'd be the last person to do something like that. I was ready to just walk away myself at that point."

He hung his head and his shoulders slumped. He went to say something but she held up a hand to stop him.

"But then I thought about how much this relationship meant to me. Given my age I've been in more than a few of them." She gave him a look to make sure there would be no age comments. "With men, with women...with both at the same time," she smirked. "That may have been one of the better ones. But in all of those relationships I have never felt the way that I have in this one. Maybe it's because I was finally free after more than a century of hiding. Maybe it's because most of my emotions were being reawakened after being pretty much shut off for so long. Maybe it was something else entirely, I don't know." Her double handed grip on Haguro Tonbo's sheath tightened. "What I do know, is that being with you just felt right, like it was where I belonged, like maybe that's where I had been trying to get to all along."

She looked over at him. She wasn't crying but her eyes were moist and it felt like a sword blade sliding into his heart. He had caused this by being impetuous and stupid.

"When you walked out, when you wouldn't let me stand by you and have your back..." her voice took on a slight waver. "It hurt in a way that I had never felt before. It scared me and I was just going to give up. But Hiyori wouldn't let me. She called me a coward and wimp...she really let me have it. She got me so mad that I chased her into the basement and we fought for hours. Poor Hachi, it took him a while to put us back together. When he was healing us Hiyori said to me that just because you were being a stupid dumbass I didn't have to be one too. Despite what I knew I think I still managed to underestimate just how much the possibility of getting your powers back meant to you. I also was forgetting just how young you are despite how much you've been through and that you weren't nearly as cynical and hard bitten by life as I am. I was still hurt and still pissed at you, and to a degree I still am, but I began to understand why you would blindly jump at the chance."

"Almost from the moment I understood what my name meant I've wanted to live up to it," he said. "I've always felt that I failed to protect my Mother and I became determined that I wasn't going to fail anyone else. Bullies and thugs, I don't need power to take care of them, but after seeing the dangers that were out there from the spiritual world and after having fought them I couldn't go without the power I once had. I felt helpless. I never really thought that a chance to regain it would come and if it ever did I thought I would be a lot more careful about it than I had been before. Shit, I didn't have a clue. I let Geta Boshi cut my Chain of Fate and throw me in a hole to see if I became a Hollow or not. Who the hell does that?"

"Besides you?" she couldn't resist.

He smiled slightly. "Exactly. And I wanted, no, I _needed_ that power back so badly that when Ginjo came along I jumped right into another hole and that hole might as well have been a Hollow's mouth and I damn near got swallowed. But even though I didn't deserve it, you were there to make sure it didn't happen."

"After Hiyori and I kicked the hell out of each other I realized that despite what happened I couldn't leave you in a lurch even if you didn't want my help. You also had a certain little black cat watching your back too, when and where I couldn't." She levelled one of her deadpan gazes on him. "Besides, if anyone is going to swallow you my dear Strawberry, it's going to be me."

He blushed and did an admirable job of not choking on his tongue. "I suppose I should find a way to thank the crazy cat woman and Snaggletooth."

"Don't worry so much about Yoruichi," she said, waving a hand dismissively. "She was still following along with the two idiots. As for Hiyori, we'll figure out something appropriate."

"If it involves fighting her again I'd rather face her Zanpakuto. That damn sandal freaking hurts."

They sat in silence for few moments before he tentatively reached over and took her left hand in his. "Thank you," he said softly, turning to look at her. "Thank you for having my back and for saving me from myself. I love spending time with you and talking to you. You made me realize how much I had been fooling myself after I lost my powers. You made me see and admit that I really wasn't alright and then you helped me through it. You were straight up and blunt with me when everyone else treated me like I would break if they said anything. You also made me see that it was alright to open up and give my heart to someone." He looked right into her eyes. "I love you Lisa and I'm so, so sorry for being such an idiot."

"You gave us back our lives and you gave me back something I hadn't felt or known in so long," she began. "You made me feel alive again, made me _feel_ again. A hundred years is a long time to feel numb and unwanted but you changed that. I love you too Ichigo, even if you are an idiot because you're _my_ idiot."

Their lips met in a long, lingering, soft kiss and they spent the next several minutes with their eyes closed and simply leaning into each other, enjoying the closeness. All of the tension seemed to leave them and there was just the soft breeze and the warmth of each other.

"I was thinking," he said after a while.

"Careful Berry-tan, you'll hurt yourself," she cracked.

"Ha ha," he smirked. Protest he might, but he actually enjoyed her snark and sass. "I know you've been wanting to go to the beach and I have a school break coming up so I thought maybe we could go somewhere for a few days. A resort or a beach side inn or something. I think we could both use some time to unwind."

"Want to see me in my bikini again do you?" she poked. "Or whisk me away so you can have your way with me?"

"...Yes?" he smirked, his cheeks turned pink again.

 _'Well now, there's some progress,'_ she thought. "Good idea, I'd love to Ichigo. You have some place in mind?"

He shrugged. "I figured we could find some time after we get back to my place for the party and look up places on the net. Find a place we both like."

"Deal," she smiled. That smile quickly turned devilish. "I have two conditions though."

"Oh?" he questioned, raising an eyebrow.

"One, is that I finally get to pop your cherry." That made his face turn as red as one. "Two, is that after I do, you do me until I forget my name." He nearly turned purple. She laid her hand against his cheek. "Ichigo, this isn't just about me being horny as hell and looking for a way to take the edge off that doesn't involve playing with myself...even if it is fun and the noise drives Hiyori nuts. And who knows, maybe I'll play exhibitionist for you." He was on the verge of choking to death. "It's because I love you and I want to make love to you. I want to look into your eyes and have that intimate connection with you."

He wrapped his arms around her. "You must be a bad influence on me because I've been finding myself wanting the same thing."

"Don't think of it as a bad influence," she smiled. "Think of it as finally waking up and allowing yourself to live. I'll still take the credit either way though."

He laughed. "We should get going before Yuzu sends out a search party. I think she was afraid that we were going to break up. Her and Karin really like you and they look up to you. I think they're hoping for another girls night with you. They enjoyed the stories you were telling them."

A warm feeling went through her. "I really like your sisters too and I've got a lot more stories where those came from." They stood and began to walk, her left hand in his right. "Good thing we didn't break up, I don't think I could handle Yuzu's reaction. Her sad puppy dog look is hard to deal with."

He chuckled. "She's a little like Unohana with some of her expressions, only without the feeling of impending death."

They walked along quietly for a few minutes. Just before they left the river walk a smirk came to his lips. "So, what colour are they today?"

She smirked back and hip bumped him. "Who said I was wearing any?"

* * *

 **AN:** And that's a wrap. I have mixed feeling since chapters 1, 4, and 5 came easily while 2 and 3 had me wanting to stick my head in a wood chipper.

Overall I would say I'm happy with how it came out. Some may not be happy with it but I write what I want because I want to write it. If you try to chase what the audience wants you'll be chasing a target you'll never hit.

This was never going to be a long fic and I was never going to write endless scenes of their dates or other things they did. That's not what the story was about and all of that stuff would have came across as filler to pad the word count. What it _was_ about keeps with my writing style where I want to utilize the characters emotions and how they have been shaped by the things they have gone through, many which haven't exactly been pleasant. It was about an unlikely pair who found a relationship through the commonality of their experiences and the things that have hurt them. They can identify with each other and they gave each other something they needed.

If anyone didn't like that and wanted to see all of the other stuff I _didn't_ put in the story...too bad. Go write your own then. Any of you who know my writing could probably guess that I wasn't going to do all that stuff anyway.

With that said, I hope you did enjoy the story and I hope you will leave a review.

Now I can go back to working on A Chance Encounter and a couple of other ideas I have. A story that fits in the 'Encounter AU set up with Ichigo being a spirit trapped in Pyrrha's head, and a story where Ichigo gets a certain adorkable little red reaper as his Zanpakuto spirit...but not in the way most have tried to tell it.

I really wish a good writer would tackle the 'RWBY girls as Zanpakuto spirits' thing. There have been three attempts that I know. The first looked like a fanboy rush job and soon turned into a shitty crack fic. A second one made it to a conclusion but has been taken down. It was just okay. The third is pretty meh and hasn't updated in forever and is probably dead.

Be nice to see someone take that idea and do it justice.


End file.
